The Angry Anthropologist Goes Hollywood

Thoughts on the strike vote #1

2008-11-24T10:45:00.000-08:00

There's a line I've heard for the past three days now,

"In these tough economics times, why would SAG even think about striking?"

Before I even answer that, it needs to be reiterated repeatedly, a strike authorization does not necessarily mean there will be a strike! It is a bargaining chip. It is the sole threat that labor unions bring to the bargaining table, and unions don't go for such a vote willy-nilly.

Now, let me put my Ph.D hat on and remind you that during the depths of the Great Depression, one-third of workers in the U.S. were out of work, 5,000 banks had crashed, and over 32,000 businesses had closed.

And in Detroit, over 200,000 auto workers had lost their jobs, sending the city's unemployment rate near 50%.

I guess those with jobs should have felt lucky to be employed at all, even with harsh working conditions, no overtime protection, and six-day work weeks.

After all, they were in "worse economic times" that we are in now.

So, what did they do? They spend a few years battling the Big Three to form the United Auto Workers, improved their working conditions, and helped to create a stable middle class.

In short, those union activists were looking down the road at future conditions, not just a paycheck in their hands that day.

And that's what this possible labor action is about - the future of online media and the ability of working actors to get paid fairly, only - and if - the producers make money.

For those backgrounders who claim, "Yeah, but it doesn't affect me, or the background contract," let me assure you, there is a doomsday scenario for background actors if the authorization vote is denied. I'll be posting about that in the near future.

Is a SAG strike coming?

2008-11-23T16:51:00.001-08:00

OK, I've been away for a long time, working on set and trying to make a living - as everyone else in this town - in the wake of the 100-day WGA strike. Now, it looks like SAG peeps like myself could possibly face a strike. In the wee hours of yesterday, federally-mediated talks between the AMPTP and SAG broke down, and a strike authorization vote will be sent to the SAG general membership.

I've come out of long-term hiatus to make a series of postings about the issues, specifically how a vote for or against a possible strike authorization will affect background actors. I've been talking to lots of fellow BGers on set, and found lots of confusing opinions, and blatantly wrong and/or misinformed ones.

Keep in touch, and I'll be posting again soon.

Going, Going, Gone...

2008-03-07T11:15:00.000-08:00

I've been nagged by the very few readers of this blog as to the complete lack of postings over the past many months.

Well, I've got more than enough reasons.

One: I'm just not a compulsive blogger and don't feel the urge to update all the time. Even when online, I just don't spend much time surfing around.

Two: I have no Internet access in my building, and have to drive several blocks to get a signal.

Three: Prior to the writer's strike, I was working often and regularly in that last spurt of employment before the ax fell on everyone in the industry.

Four: While this was going on, I also had a hefty writing assignment for an out-of-state university that took up a lot of free time.

But finally, and foremost, I spent the last 7+ months watching my stepmother die of ovarian cancer and dealing with that anguish with my immediate family. My father is elderly and needs a lot of support, so what free time I do have to myself, I try to keep for myself and not the blog.

So, I've decided that my heart really isn't in this blog, and therefore am giving forewarning to you all that I shall probably shut it down in the next few weeks.

My thanks again to those you who have taken the time to read it over the past few years.

Bye.

I'm back

2007-07-29T18:57:00.000-07:00

Well, it's only been almost two months since posting, so yes, I'm a really, really bad blogger, but then I had a lousy hiatus.

There are two shut-down periods in the business: mid-December to mid-January, and a slowdown in May, with business picking up in June and into July. May is always a write-off (most television series wrap-up their shooting schedules by the first week of the month), but June is usually a bit better.

This year I had a really slow hiatus, so I was commandered by the local parental unit into doing lots of fixing projects around his house. That, plus searching for a few bookings, seemed to take up my time, and somehow I forgot all about posting.

Since I'm back on set again, I'll try to be better about the posts.

One good bit of news - I'm a regular on one of those police/fed series again this year, but this season I learned that they moved their stage. What was a good hour-and-a-half commute last year is now a mere fifteen minutes down the road! Told that to the 2nd2nd our first day back. His reply? "I guess we know whose going to get all the rush calls this season."

At least it's work.

Fit to be uniformed

2007-05-07T10:50:00.000-07:00

Last Friday night I worked a relatively low-budget feature centering on gang warfare in LosAngeles. But, I wasn't a gang-banger: I was a cop. And after you get cast as a cop after, say, a dozen times or so, you get used to all the paraphernalia: ill-fitting (meaning tight) uniforms, utility belts that leave bruises on your hips, and long waits at the prop truck to get fitted out, or de-proped.

On gigs with larger budgets, the wardrobe rack is usually chock-full of different sized uniforms in case someone can't work their way into their slacks. But on this shoot, it was "one uniform" per cop, and our sizes had been provided to wardrobe by the casting director.

Still, that didn't matter too much. I got stuck in the back of the line, and by the time was given my costume, someone else had come running back from the changing truck whining about his pants not fitting properly. (Actually, cop pants always fit very tight, so if you're even close to an inch off your measurements on file, it ain't gonna happen.) Consequently, they had given my size away to him.

So wardrobe said, "I have one pair which is a few inches too tight for you, and one which is a few inches too wide." Guess which one I could actually fit in? It was all I could do to keep the damn things from falling down all night, after I had clipped on a fully-loaded utility belt with a few stays. On top of that, they had a shirt with a neck size a half-inch smaller than mine, so I had a ill-fitting tight shirt, plus a pair of draggy cop pants.

How did they hide this uniform faux pas? They opted to make me wear a jacket.

So if you've ever wondered why some of those cops running around on screen look a bit "less than professional," as wardrobe.

Next time I'll answer the question I get asked repeatedly, "What do you do in holding for all those hours?"

Tales from a strange business

2007-05-01T15:53:00.000-07:00

A couple weeks ago I was on set and chatting with a fellow backgrounder about the business. He stated that when friends ask him, "What is it that you do? Exactly?" he has difficulty answering, because many times the nature of the job changes from day to day, and set to set.

This is just what happened to a friend last week. He worked an eight-hour gig and was wrapped. He drove home only to realize that he had left his hat back at the shoot location (it was a Western-themed production). So, after changing he drove back and luckily found his hat.

But then an AD saw him and asked if he could "stay on" for a bit. he thought they might need more BG bodies in the scene. Even though my friend wasn't dressed for the part, he agreed, and was rushed to wardrobe to be refitted and hustled back to holding, where he waited, on the clock, for an additional five hours of overtime, including the time he had spent driving back home.

And he was never used.

Recently I was photo-picked for a featured bit and booked for an interview. Usually these involve the director looking at two or three BG'ers and then making a Caesar-like thumbs-up or thumbs-down decision about who would look best in the shot.

And so I thought that would be par for this interview.

That is, until I showed up and a script was thrust into my hands with some throw-away lines and I was given a few minutes to compose myself for a cold-read audition on camera.

Nice. Basically, it was really more of an audition (i.e., SAG Theatrical Contrac) versus an interview (i.e., SAG Background Contract).

Haven't heard back from them yet, but I appreciate the experience.

The Mysterious Upgrade

2007-04-27T19:26:00.000-07:00

I think some medieval scribes wrote more often on vellum with ink than I do online, of course, the fact that I write while doing laundry doesn't help any. Screaming kids and arguing parents don't make the process any easier.

Anyway, pilot season is basically over, but hiatus won't be that long this year. Last Tuesday the LA Times reported that production is up in Los Angeles in anticipation of a possible writers strike by the WGA before the end of October. As a result, shows which usually began production in July are doing so in May, when backgrounders like me are looking to features (i.e., films) to put food on the table.

One of the questions I often get asked is, "Have you got any lines yet?" Yeah, but not on anything that pays SAG dayplayer scale. However, "upgrades" happen all the time on set, and under the rules of the contract all union BG have the right to audition for the spot before it can go to a non-SAG actor. And I've worked with lots of people who have three, four, sometimes six or more upgrades.

And when it happens, it's quick and unexpected.

Case in point, last week I worked a TV series as a lawyer in a courtroom. The lead character has won his case in front of the judge, and is unsure about whether to leave as the next case is called. Another BG "lawyer" was directed to wait impatiently behind him, hurrying him along as best she could.

After a take the director approached and said to the other lawyer, "Ask him to please move along." Aha! If you say just one word, it is an instant upgrade from the Background to Theatrical SAG contract. So, naturally, the 1st AD runs over and emphatically interjects, "She's just pantomiming, yes?" (Read: I don't want to get chewed out by the UPM for an on set upgrade which would put us over budget.) Director: "Uh, yeah, I guess so."

So close. But even with an upgrade, the types of lines you are likely to get aren't the best to show off your talent. Typical upgrade lines are:

"Mister Jones on Line two."

"Detective."

"Table for two, please."

"Fourth floor."

"Excuse me, but your backpack is ticking."

Remember that last one? It's from "Mr. & Mrs. Smith." And it was an on-set upgrade, the guy was hired that days as a regular union BG.

But, my personal favorite isn't really an upgrade, it was a throw-away line from a dayplayer that wasn't dropped into the trash icon in Avid in postproduction:

"Agent Tulley, get in here!" (From this season's "24")

It's always nice to play yourself on TV.

Recovery mode

2007-04-01T09:50:00.000-07:00

Yeah, the all-nighter went all-night, but I didn't get booked for the morning, so I was actually able to sleep.

But, just like I said in my last post, you have to be flexible, and sometimes you're the right person for the job, and sometimes not.

On the all-nighter one of the stand-ins fails to show up, so the 2nd ran around holding looking for a suitable stand in, which turned out to be me. Fine, I do semi-regular SI work on a couple shows, so I know how do it. The DP, though, was a real stickler, and wanted the same height, hair color, and skin tone; I fit two of those criteria, which was good enough. So it was a nice bump in pay, plus a long night, and I did work for it. The steadicam op wanted us to go through the lines, which means instant memorization (try that for a "cold read") so he could see the light on our eyes as we did some long hallway shots. At one point the 1st joked, "Hey, nice job, huh? You could be sleeping down in holding with the BG, but instead you're working." Yep, that was was about it. BG got wrapped at 4AM, and I went home around 7AM, close to thirteen hours on that gig.

But I didn't get to sleep too long. While on set I got a call from my serivce, "Can you make it to a photo double interview tomorrow?" Sure, why not, it's only sleep, or lack thereof. After a somewhat restful four hours, I worked my way through Friday traffic to Hollywood (there was a big fire in Griffith Park that afternoon, which complicated matters), and waited around for more than two hours before being shuttled to set to meet with the director.

This time, I was close, but not just "right" for the job. Turns out production wanted body doubles, not just photo doubles. There were six of us interviewing for three different cast members, and none of us were the same sizes as our matching cast member. The casting director knows that, we know that, so it was a waste of time for production, and us, but it was a nice half-day pay (they exceeded the two-hour time window) plus mileage.

Pilot season. Booked for Monday, spent the weekend sleeping and doing chores. That's what working actors do.

Into the night

2007-03-29T13:16:00.000-07:00

Since my last post, I've worked every day, save one, which I used to catch up on some long overdue sleep. It's that time of the year when everything is crazy, like the following:

Showed up on the set of a pilot last week with explicit instructions from the casting director on the lines, "Our guy cast as the police photographer should be in a suit, definitely in a suit." Trouble is, I can't remember seeing any photographer in a suit, save for an awards show. So I packed some casual stuff. Sure enough, I get to the wardrobe trailer and the first words out of her mouth are, "Don't you have anything less formal than that?"

It's all about going with the flow. The same thing happened yesterday on a location shoot (really close to my apartment, for once). I showed up early, but the BG coordinator was down on his count for a wedding shoot. He signed me in early, prior to my call time, and had me wait for wardrobe to see if any of my options would be acceptable for a role change.

So I waited, and waited, and waited some more. Wardrobe was dealing with a problem on set, several miles away, and finally got back to the dozen of us waiting in the sun by the trailer a full two hours after our call time. By that time, of course, they didn't want us in formal stuff, and switched us out into uniforms - something not mentioned on the tape with our agency.

Again, you just have to go with the flow, otherwise you will burn out gray cells working in this business.

[Note: Those of you who have worked BG will know that CD's often state that "non-union must bring two clothing options, while union brings one." According to the contract, SAG BG must be paid bumps if requested to bring additional changes to set (or luggage, or props), even if those changes are never used. That's why you hear that phrase used all the time. But, given experiences like those detailed above, we still bring some options with us. ]

So, I'm off to a night shoot tonight, with a high probability of being booked on another gig while on set for tomorrow, possibly early. How do you deal with a two, or three-hour turn around? Pack more clothes, keep other stuff in the trunk of your car, and be prepared to leave one set and drive to another, shave and change quickly, and go to work. Thankfully, this doesn't happen too often, but it is one of the experiences full time BG must endure from time to time. Details to come.

It's that time of the year

2007-03-23T10:57:00.000-07:00

No, not that time of the year. But it feels like a holiday.

Pilot season is in full swing, and that means long days, full weeks, and fat paychecks. All you have to give up is sleep, and a piece of your life.

I remember having a conversation with another BG'er last year at this time. She said, "I don't know what day of the week it is, but I know my category and call time for tomorrow, and the location of crew parking."

It's also the time of the year when casting agencies call you in the wee hours of the morning:

"How fast can you make it to Long Beach?"

"Uh, what time is it?" Peering into the predawn blackness.

"About an hour before call time, if you can make it."

But we all do it since pilot season is to actors what harvest season is to farmers, the opportunity to actually earn some cash.

Now, I'm trying to keep up on the blogging, but my formerly-friendly neighbors are tweaking down their wifi networks, reducing me to post from a local laundromat, complete with screaming kids, loud Spanish-language TV, and machines buzzing all around.

It's not too conducive to writing, but I'll try.

Last week was a good one for me on the boob tube, I was featured prominently on two shows: One, a fast-paced action drama (something to do with a stabbing); and the other a long-time skit comedy show that has finally wrapped for good. Got a lot of emails and calls from family and friends congratulating me. But, reality set in when I told my dad about it.

"Nah. I looked for you and didn't see anything."

Oh well. That's the fleeting nature of the business. In the mean time I'm still collecting checks, getting health care, and making pension payments.

And, of course, I'm off to a night shoot later today on the other side of town.

Out of the doldrums

2007-03-18T19:19:00.000-07:00

OK, so I'm a bad blogger... a really bad blogger. But part of the reason for this corner of cyberspace is to show you all some of aspects of being a professional background actor in Hollywood. That, of course, requires work, and when there is no work, there's just not much to report.

January was great. Coming out of hiatus a bunch of us were working full weeks, looking forward the traditional February-to-early-May pilot season. But then February 1st came, and the work just...didn't...appear.

In fact, it was downright lousy. Industry vets who are a year or two away from collecting their SAG pensions were griping, loudly, about how slow this past month was.

"I've never seen it this slow with two decades in the business."

You said it.

So a couple weeks went by without any gigs, then one or two here, a long wait, and another at the end of a week.

Finally, it has picked up, and taken off like a kite in a windstorm, with the same degree of finess.

Case in point. Last Friday I got the call at 5:30 am to rush down to the harbor area (about forty miles away) ASAP to replace a union backgrounder whose car broke down. After rushing through the early L.A. rush-hour mess, I got to base camp, wardrobe, makeup, hair, and was then rushed onto set sans any coffee or caffeinated product (a serious grievance in my book), let alone food, then was placed prominently in the first scene of the day. The coverage meant that I was used for all angles, while my colleagues lingered by crafty and filled their waistlines with wanton calories. And I still really needed that coffee.... Finally got a cup about 3 1/2 hours into the day.

For the past couple weeks, this has been typical, apart from some plush jobs. Did two full days on a feature near my city - an easy commute and was never used once: A "no-hitter!"

So, for the literally dozens of you who visit TAAGH, I'll try my best to keep up with the posts. Also, since this *is* pilot season, any of you who want to try the industry, now is a great time. And, more importantly, those of you trying to go union, this is a very important time. Keep tuning in, and I'll leave you with my thoughts on what it takes to go union, which I think is much easier to do in the next few months than at any other time of the year.

That should whet your whistles.

Pesky Questions on Set

2007-01-30T11:58:00.001-08:00

Wow! Where did that time go?

I feel like I’ve been running around like crazy for over two weeks, with not much to show for it on this blog.

Let see:

Worked for nine days in a row, five of those on the same episode, so every night was “wash your shirt to drip dry” for continuity, and the morning commute.

Was working on a non-acting project under a deadline in the other hours, when not on set or traveling back and forth to the studio du jour.

Argued one afternoon with an accounting department over a paycheck.

Filed a grievance with SAG for a paycheck on a booking which turned out “not” to be a booking after the 6pm deadline (which they will take up with production – thank goodness for the union!).

Oh yeah, got sick for about five or six days while enduring the aforementioned. That was fun.

Finally, am dealing with police and insurance today, as my car was broken into last night – and hoping to make it to set later on. (PS – It’s raining today in Los Angeles, which makes it all the more special for those of who park outside and have shattered windows.)

Temporary insanity in daily life is, naturally, a given, but made more aggravating when confronted with what I like to call, “askies.”

Askies don’t like to use their eyes, hands, or higher cognitive functions. Why flex the gray matter when you can simply ask someone standing right next to you?

And you find them on set all the damn time.

This week, I got cornered by an askie at 20^th Century Fox as we were wrapped and walking towards the shuttle back to the parking lot.

“Is that the shuttle?”

“It sure looks like the one we took this morning.

“Is it full? Are there any seats left?” (This from about forty yards away.)

“Don’t know. You’re in the same position as me to peer inside.”

Askies typically reveal themselves at lunch, usually when waiting in line – a long line – for catering.

“What’s on the menu today? What were they grilling?”

“Don’t know. I’ve been inside working for the last two hours.”

“But did you see anything?”

“We were seated at the same table for those last two scenes….”

Got one of those two weeks ago. As we got closer to the steam tables, she shifted gears and became a “commentariate.”

“Oh look at the chicken. Looks good today, doesn’t it?”

“It’s not chicken – it’s mahi mahi.

“What’s that sauce.”

“It’s not chicken – it’s mahi mahi!”

“Are these the same people who cater House? What’s their name? This chicken looks a bit strange.”

“That’s because it’s not chicken – it’s fish!

[Evil look from the askie/commentariate.]

“Well, sorry to disturb your day.”

Creativity on set

2007-01-12T11:11:00.000-08:00

I just spent a couple very long days on a popular television drama this week, so my blog entries have been kept to zilch at night (sorry to those of you who checked in). However, the shoot was a great opportunity to see some A-list actors and an Emmy-award winning director work out scenes on the fly.

You might think that a lot of shoots are thought out ahead of time in story boards before the camera rolls, but often they aren't. There is a great deal of last-minute creativity on the set, and if you're lucky enough to be standing around for twelve hours, you'll get a taste for it.

Now in my case this was because I was featured backgrounder matching a shot we had done outdoors on location last month - this was the inside shoot on a stage recreating the inside of a house. There's always a nice feeling when you walk onto the stage and look around for other backgrounders, only to be told, "Oh yeah, the other guy is coming this afternoon. It's just you until lunch."

(BTW, at this point, you are not really so much of a backgrounder as a voiceless actor - cast and crew will introduce themselves to you, chat with you between takes, and so on. The experience of working with only a handful of background in a scene is very different than what BG are usually called upon to do - "busy" the scene with crosses and stationary people. And, of course, the AD's actually expect you to ACT in the scene.)

So, in one take, the lead actress needed to do some highly emotional reaction shots to another actor who had been injured. While setting up the shot, the A camera op kept asking, "Are you going to standing up, kneeling down by him, or what?" Answer, "I don't know. I'll just do it." He asked the same question and got the same answer repeatedly; it was the clash of two cultural frames on set. As camera op, he needed to know what action was going to transpire so he could capture it, but the A-list actress wanted to let the "moment" dictate what her emotions were going to be. Eventually, it took some planning a head of time, and then several takes before we worked it all out (including crosses for shadow effects, people in the corner of the room, etc.)

At another point in the day, as the crew was setting up a shot, the director said, "You know, I once saw this in a movie - it was really neat" and proceeded to move props around himself, making a bit of a mess to show the aftermaths of a lot action. "Yeah, more of that...No, less of that" and so on.

Imagine this kind of banter and give-and-take on set all hours of the day, between all the different departments on the call sheet, and you'll get a better appreciation of the organized chaos that generally characterizes working on set.

Got a busy day of errands, then off to two days of a weekend shoot.

T of R Escapes Yet Again

2007-01-06T12:33:00.000-08:00

There are an awful bunch of us who think that the Tournament of Roses made some nefarious pact with the underworld decades ago – they never seem to get bad weather on parade day.

This year was no different. For the past couple days, the Los Angeles basin has been experiencing high-volume winds which have been toppling trees and taking out power lines. That would have made for some interesting floats (or, in this case, kites?) on Colorado Blvd. last week.

Hiatus is officially over for me. I’m booked for most of next week, plus the weekend, if shooting schedules remain the same. And most of the other backgrounders I keep in touch with will be working come Monday morning, or have already done some gigs this week. One friend called last night on his way to set – a night call! As he said, “The things we do to pay the rent.”

Thursday night, I switched on the opening of Criminal Minds, and thought production was playing some type of cruel joke on the viewing public. It was a courtroom scene and the defense attorney was portrayed by Alan Rosenberg, current President of the Screen Actors Guild. The prosecuting attorney was none other than Anne-Marie Johnson, who also sits on the SAG Board, and until a couple months ago, was 1^st VP, making her the head of the Hollywood Division. (She was replaced by Kent McCord.)

Two attorneys going at it head-to-head must have made that scene look familiar to a SAG Board meeting.

T of R: The Day in Pictures

2007-01-01T18:47:00.000-08:00

These probably aren't the typical T of R pics you're used to seeing, but they are what locals are used to.

First, there are crowds milling around, waiting for some big USAF bomber to fly over to signal the start of the parade - or, hoping that it will continue east and take out Pomona.

And, of course, we had the nerds of the world uniting under rainbow flags on Colorado Blvd.

Sometimes, you can see the open door of a float driver (see below).

Finally, there is the convoy of broken down floats, and general towing equipment at the end, along with the inevitable trash.

Sunday night countdown to the T of R

2006-12-31T20:54:00.000-08:00

The crowds are finally here. Lots of portable fireplaces are burning and gas heaters are cranked up as everyone is counting down the minutes to midnight.

I took a walk along Colorado and Sierra Madre - saw basically the same scene I do every year in the neighborhood.

This year, however, was a bit different.

There's a propane station just up the road, and as I was walking towards it, I noticed one big, tall flame shooting up into the night sky. But, there weren't any fire engines around.

When I arrived, I saw that this "accidental" flame was intentional, and probably the most talked about fire pit on the last mile of the parade route tonight!

Sunday afternoon countdown to the T of R

2006-12-31T16:14:00.000-08:00

OK, it's official. The crowds are arriving. The sidewalks are blocked. Traffic is horrible. And the sound level has increased by several orders of magnitude.

New Year's Day is coming to Pasadena.

Sunday morning countdown to the T of R

2006-12-31T09:45:00.000-08:00

The "bustle" is coming to town, and by tonight, all those tranquil scenes I posted yesterday will be chock full of campers.

Most of the media coverage centers at the start of the parade route, but the last 1/2 mile or so is all residential. Families camp out on the sidewalks and traffic islands for years, sometimes generations. And, although camping is technically illegal until noon today, locals have already been marking their spots, such as below:

And just to clarify, in case some of you thought that the RV's didn't come out in convoys - take a look at this one gathering:

The one good thing about having hundreds of thousands of people camping on your city's streets overnight? If you really, really need "to go," you'll never have to search to far:

Countdown to the T of R, Part 1

2006-12-30T15:21:00.000-08:00

Saturday morning was really nice in Pasadena. Too bad it won't remain like that for long.

In just about 24 hours, parade viewers will be able to legally camp on sidewalks and traffic islands to secure a place to the view the parade come Monday morning.

Consequently, businesses are preparing for this public decampment, complete with chain-link fence, security guards, barriers - everything sans the concertina wire (reserved for federal buildings 365 days a year).

Geez. You know it's bad when even the Christians put up a blockade which shouts, "Stay Out!!"

Dueling reviews

2006-12-29T20:45:00.000-08:00

One of the last seminars I took in grad school was by Margery Wolf, who wrote a somewhat-famous book on postmodern critiques of ethnographic research, whereby seemingly obvious and objective observations are interpreted, re-imagined, and disseminated through the particular biases of different observers. (See? Too much graduate school education affords one the ability to spew theoretical vocabulary with the best of them.)

I felt a bit like one such observer this morning, as I was bounced back and forth between two competing print reviews of Miss Potter, which opened this weekend in Los Angeles.

A couple weeks ago, I attended a SAG pre-screening with a Q&A by Christopher Noonan, Renée Zellweger, and Emily Watson. Frankly, I enjoyed this movie, and recommended it to my friends, even though biopics tend to bring out the notoriously fickle reviewer in all of us (i.e., “Did so-and-so really do that?” “Did people dress/act/speak like that?”).

Two reviewers - Carina Chocano in the LA Times, and Ella Taylor in the LA Weekly – obviously had their own list of fickle points to hit after viewing the movie.

For instance, gripes about Renée Zellweger:

LA Times

“Thirty-six and unmarried in 1902 (though, unaccountably, the movie makes her 32 the year she published "The Tale of Peter Rabbit," because, let's face it, nobody wants to see a movie about a 36-year-old spinster, there are limits)…”

LA Weekly

“Bronzed and russet all over, with quaintly autumnal production design to match, Zellweger’s Beatrix bustles about, flashing the Zellweger sour-lemons smile, dispensing maidenly charm and no-nonsense practicality as she shepherds her little tales from soup to nuts….”

And, the acting abilities of Ewan McGregor:

LA Times

“Still, the movie is redeemed by excellent performances. McGregor, in particular, lights up the film, and in her scenes with him… His Norman is a pure, puppyish innocent with a bounding enthusiasm for Potter's work.”

LA Weekly

“Smiling nervously as if not to unseat the mustache precariously affixed to his upper lip, this Mr. McGregor does nothing to convince us that the pallid swain is the love of Beatrix’s life….”

Take a read yourself, and perhaps even see the movie, then make up your mind.

On the other hand, I think Ella Taylor had her own Xmas wish-list for this end-of-year movie:

“Unfortunately for her, she has Emily Watson at her elbow, acting up a storm as the independent sister of Potter’s doomed fiancé. Which had me wishing the two actresses would either trade places and have done with it, or run with the promisingly homoerotic current that courses through most close same-sex friendships of that period.”

Oh, well. It is the LA Weekly that has all those costly-per-minute phone numbers listed in the back pages.

A native view of the parade

2006-12-28T11:37:00.000-08:00

Since I am a native-born Pasadenan, I get asked questions about the Rose Parade all the time. (The most useful? "How do I deal with the street closures and parking?") That's for another time.

So, this year I decided before the weekend crowds decamp in the Rose City, I would show the readership of this small corner of the blogosphere what the "real" parade route looks like - instead of the one-dimensional example here.

First, the floats line on Orange Grove.

Then, they make the sometimes perilous turn onto Colorado Blvd. proper.

After the long trek down Colorado, they then head up Sierra Madre - on the "wrong" side of the street no less! Bet you didn't know that.

One of the last obstacles for tall floats is the 210 Freeway overpass. If you've ever wondered why all those really animated floats have to collapse down to a certain height, you're looking at it.

Finally, the parade ends at Pasadena High School/Victory Park. Years ago, float viewing was free on the grass at the park, but around 1978-1979 there were massive rainstorms, creating one big, festive mud pit, courtesy of the City of Pasadena.

Welcome to town. Now, obey the signs

2006-12-27T16:54:00.000-08:00

There's not too much to report to my readership, given that I haven't been on set since last week.

There is, however, the impending arrival of the Rose Parade in Pasadena. (I'm a native - so please indulge me.)

Last year, we had a deluge of rain on Jan. 1st - causing teenage marching bands to be wet and gloomy, and seeds, petals, and banana leaves on floats to peel off and add to the general accumulation of trash on Colorado Blvd.

I walked to the end of my block and tried to watch for about an hour, complete with backwoods raingear, only to retreat when my fingers went numb, and I was completely soaked from the knees down.

But this rarely happens. The last time it rained on the parade previously was somewhere around 1949 - about the same year downtown Los Angeles had its last recorded snowfall.

But, things might change. Today we had a bunch of rainstorms blow through the LA Basin, and tonight we have (cold) Santa Ana winds gusting at around 40 mph, with occassional gusts up to 70 mph.

Next Monday might be very, very interesting.

In the meantime, the city is going a bit crazy with last-minute construction of bleachers, viewing areas (like this), and the general pandemic of "No Parking" zones, like in the pic above.

Enjoy the view, but just don't park anywhere nearby, or pay $200.

It's hiatus, and the nerds are coming to town...

2006-12-24T10:15:00.000-08:00

OK, it's hiatus in the industry, meaning almost all production in town is shut down through the first week of January, cast and crew members go scurrying across the globe on vacation, and almost everyone opens up their unemployment file.

About the same time in Pasadena, Colorado Blvd. starts sprouting bleachers like a poorly tended lawn sprouts mushrooms, Good Sam Club RV's pop-up on side streets, and the No Parking signs go up.

Then, things get weird.

If you haven't heard, the 118th Tournament of Roses has picked George Lucas as the Grand Marshall, to be escorted on the 5.6 mile route by almost 200 nerdy Star Wars fans (courtesy of today's Pasadena Star News).

I'm sure the founding fathers of the city never thought they'd see that (nor, of course, the year that Kermit the Frog was Grand Marshall).

Keep in touch - "bleacher shot of the day" will be coming soon.

Vocabulary on the day

2006-12-13T21:41:00.000-08:00

A couple weeks into December marks the beginning of winter hiatus, the inevitable slow-down in production as television shows cease taping over the holiday break, movies may or may not continue filming (one I just worked on wrapped their US filming schedule, and moved overseas), and agencies generally slow down. It's the time when lots of folk in the industry go on unemployment.

So, I was lucky to get a few days this week, including one today on a show I haven't worked for months - and they remembered me (!), which was a nice bonus.

Anyway, a DGA trainee was on set, learning all the ins and outs of a working set, and starting up the steep directorial ladder (Trainee, Production Assistant, Key Set PA, 2nd 2nd AD, Key 2nd AD, 1st AD, and Director). But he was really cool about watching the crosses and timing, no chips on his shoulder, no bossing the background (most of whom have been doing this longer than he has), etc.

And as we chatted between takes (we were deep - a long way away from the boom mike), he admitted that he tried to keep out of his "normal" conversations the peculiar vocabulary that we all pick up on set.

If you use terms like the following with civilians on the street, you know you're too far deep into the industry to change:

"Copy That" Almost everyone in production has a Motorola, and those on set have earpieces. There's an old joke that the AD's always hear "voices in their heads," which is true. So you might be talking to the Key Set PA, who will then cock his head to one side, grab a microphone clipped to his shirt, and say, "copy that" to whomever has asked him to do something. Funny thing is, you do this dozens of times a day, and it become normal, or at least, you think it's normal. On one gig, a PA told me she heard her roommate say "copy that" to her mother on the phone, in lieu of "yes." "

"Flying In" (A personal favorite) When something is "flying in," it's being rushed in."Honey, can you bring the salad from the kitchen?" "Sure. Flying in, Mom."

"Flashing," and "Striking" Wardrobe always wants to take polaroid or digital photos of background in their own clothes or costumes so they can match the shot, if need be. Inevitably, they will always say, "flashing" before snapping the photo. Juicers will also sometimes call out "flashing" or, I am told more commonly for arclights and the big stuff, "striking," before switching them on. (Don't laugh - stages are rigged to go from night to day with the flick of a switch.) One friend told me her boyfriend, a gaffer, has it so ingrained in his daily habits, that he says, "striking" when turning on the lights at home.

"On The Day" (My all-time personal favorite) When the cameras are rolling, and you are acting, it is "on the day." So if the PA says, "On the day, cross over to that desk, make conversation for five beats, then peel off, banana around the principals, and exit camera right" it's crystal clear. At least, to those of us who do this for a living.

It's About Time

2006-12-10T12:58:00.000-08:00

OK, so I'm spending my Sunday afternoon doing some serious housecleaning on the blog.

Frankly, it needed it.

Dead Like Me

2006-12-10T10:16:00.000-08:00

It's little-known outside the background community that being cast as a corpse constitutes bragging rights (toe tag, versus upper torso, versus whole torso, versus chest-torn-open, etc), and endless discussions in holding about who was the "better" dead fellow.

So it was delightful to hear a piece on NPR's Sunday Edition this morning about this topic. You can listen to it online here.

Weekend Edition Sunday, December 10, 2006 · The number of corpses on prime time television is on the rise -- and it presents a challege for TV's casting directors. Playing the part isn't easy. It requires more than just holding your breath and being able to stay still for a long time.

And as for me? Nah, never been a corpse. Someday...someday.

How not to make movies

2006-12-08T12:30:00.000-08:00

Great article in today's Los Angeles Times about the control author Clive Cussler had over the making of Sahara, from his novel.

The best line, of course, is from one of the writers hired to polish the doomed script:

James V. Hart (Steven Spielberg's "Hook" and Francis Ford Coppola's "Dracula") was paid about $600,000. He found Cussler difficult, but not unlike many novelists — protective of their material and unable to grasp the transition to cinema.

"I've worked with a lot of live authors," Hart testified. "The dead ones are easier to deal with."

Down the drain

2006-12-06T22:13:00.000-08:00

One of the first things you learn on set is that "not all is as it appears to be."

All those nice offices, airports, hospital rooms, and even small town Americana, are constructed for the "look," and ease in filming.

This means that for a certain coverage shot, a whole wall might be unscrewed, unbolted, and moved out of the way so the cameras can get a better angle, usually in a matter of minutes. I've also seen the gaffer make the decision to take a portrait off the wall and have a large hole cut to bounce a light into a shot. Picture goes back on the wall, and no one is the wiser that there's a big gap behind the nice painting.

And other things which you take for granted, such as electrical outlets, phones, televisions, and trash bins are probably just props, and non-usable.

For instance, on show I used to work with an airport set, newcomers would often throw trash into the "official" looking bins, only to have props yell at them - the "real" trash cans were Rubbermaid bins with plastic liners.

But sometimes, even the vets forget this principle.

So today, I watched one of the leads on a show throw a cup of cold coffee down a kitchen sink, only to get yelled at by the crews as if he was a newbie backgrounder.

The sink's plumming was non-existant. That drain poured that bad cup of coffee onto the floor.

At least, today, they couldn't blame the background.

How to Lose Friends and Alienate People

2006-12-05T09:17:00.000-08:00

The British journalist Toby Young once wrote a scathing tongue-in-cheek book, “How to Lose Friends and Alienate People,” about his experiences working for Vanity Fair. He landed a choice job with excellent prospects, and proceeded to take the goodwill of everyone around him, and throw it back in their face.

I recently worked with someone like that.

“I don’t like doing this job.” “

"Don’t like seeing my face on screen when I’m doing background.”

“I got something better to do tomorrow.”

The guy sure tried his best to channel his inner Toby Young. He refused to have make-up applied, until the 1^st AD threatened to send him home. He kept folding his arms during the shot when the AD’s asked him not to. And at the end of the day, props was running around looking for him and his stuff to turn back in - he was nowhere to be seen.

During our downtime on set, they guy kept complaining, “I’ve been doing this for five years. I’m waiting for my career to take off,” then griped about not working enough days.

I said, “At least this time of the year you can see free screenings with Q&A by cast members, or the director, if you’re not working on a given day.” (Which is true: Voting season is approaching and all the PR machines in town are cranking up the buzz quotient to eleven.)

“Nah. That stuff is for wanna-be actors who suck.”

Wonder how our casting director will like hearing back from production that this guy took off without getting de-proped by the assistant prop master?

Oh yeah, and he was union.

Sunday morning on film

2006-12-03T10:35:00.000-08:00

Yes, Los Angeles in an industry town, just one without many meat packing plants. So the local papers are full of stories about "the business" that focus on things other than celebrity marriages, break-ups, and awards ceremonies.

Today's Los Angeles Times contains a couple such examples. Hidden away in the Business section is a highly informative article on the recent history of Panavision - one of the major manufacturers of motion picture cameras, including more recently, digital cameras.

Then, after throwing away a few pounds of glossy advertisements, I finally reached the Calendar section, which contains another good article on the travails of working with the new digital technology, specifically on Gibson's new flick Apocalypto.

Now, it's not just the inner nerd in me that likes to keep track on changes in cinematography, such as HD (high def), sometimes when on set, you need to know this is stuff is about.

Friday, I was on a late-night shoot, when the AD pulled out a few backgrounders from holding for the "HD sliver." A couple people asked, "What did he mean by that?"

If you've ever watched a football game on an HD television set, you know that resolution is much wider than "normal" feeds. Hence, when shooting the master shot in HD, the field is much wider than the so-called "Academy" ratio, so you need to fill those section of the room with people, otherwise the scene looks too spread or empty, and lacking in "atmosphere" which is what we are listed as on the daily call sheet.

In fact, if you ever get a chance to peer at the video feed monitor from a camera shooting in HD take a careful look - there will be two vertical lines showing the "standard" resolution covering about 80% of the screen, with the section on either side reflection the HD feed.

Have wardrobe bag, will work.

2006-12-01T09:37:00.000-08:00

Sometimes in this business you feel like a medical intern; long hours, little sleep.

Because this week has been particularly slow for me, I went on the overnight rush lines last night (to fill vacancies created by the sick, wounded, or those with last-minute auditions in the morning).

I finally get the call around 2:30 am:

"Want to work today?"

(Duh...) "Ah, sure, why not? What's my role?"

"You're playing a doctor."

Told you.

Thank goodness for the union reps!

2006-11-30T21:26:00.000-08:00

There's an old joke among the background community that we are the "cockroaches" of the industry. Most folks will think this stems from being the lowest in the pecking order. But on the other hand, think of this:

1: We will eat almost anything organic left on set. (Just ask crafty!)
2. We are largely impervious to extreme changes in temperatures in holding.
3. We appear, and disappear, into strange corners of the set, such as behind C stands, flags, wild walls, etc.
5. We work in smoke, water, and other maladjusted conditions for extra bumps in pay.
4. No matter how many times you try to eradicate us, we keep coming back.

So, early this week I was on a new feature in downtown Los Angeles. Location shots are always interesting, but on this day, the rain was pouring down.

You would think production would have things under control. Instead:

1. We waited in tents for wardrobe to approve our business attire for a full 45 minutes. You might think, “So what?” But, at first there were no lights inside, then the electricians ran some lines through standing puddles of water after a few complaints. By the time we were done, most of us were standing in a full inch of water, clutching wardrobe bags, purses, etc. Anything to stay relatively dry.

2. We were informed that there was “no holding” area for us, either at catering (across the street) or on set. Originally, they wanted us to stay outside, in the elements – which were now dripping atmosphere. Apparently, they hadn’t bothered to order more tents for the shoot. Eventually, we were shown a small room inside, near set, which would serve as a “temporary” holding. It was the size of a large broom closet, with about a dozen seats to serve roughly 50 union background, and another 25 non-union background. Now, the contract is quite clear on all these things:

19. SANITARY PROVISIONS

The following shall be provided:
(a) Pure drinking water.
(b) A seat for each Background Actor.
(c) A stretcher or cot to be used as a stretcher.
(d) Separate dressing rooms for actors of each sex.
(e) Separate dressing rooms for children of each sex.
(f) Adequate provisions for proper and safe keeping of Background Actor’s clothing during work.
(g) Adequate, clean and sanitary, individually screened toilet facilities, toilet paper, soap, and paper towels, or individual towels. Sanitary napkins must be obtainable.

Background Actors may refuse to change wardrobe if not provided with a place of privacy and comfort. Dressing rooms with adequate lighting to be provided. Buses and restrooms are not considered acceptable places to change. Buses used as holding areas must have lights and proper seasonal climate control.

The final nail in the coffin was the “privacy” concern. Some shootsdon’t want cell phones that can take photos on set. Some A-list actors don’t want to be compromised and production companies, understandably, don’t want plot lines to be released before a movie has been fully edited.

So, we were told, “No cell phones on set.” Fine, “How about in holding, which isn’t on set?”

“No, all cell phones must be locked in your cars.” [This applied to background only – even union – crew was still chatting away their online minutes like a bunch of teenagers on set.]

Minutes later, a good fraction of the call was on the phone bothering SAG Production Services – the enforcement wing of the union for backgrounders – with the following refrain, “Production is taking away our ability to call you from set regarding labor contract violations.”

That piqued their interest.

Now, I was in the shot for most of the morning, but when I emerged, chairs had suddenly sprouted like mushrooms after a good rain, all the PA’s and AD’s were very, very friendly to us (what a change), our 2nd 2nd AD had a copy of the SAG contract stuck in his back pocket, and people were getting called left and right from SAG reps with follow-up questions.

Yeah, we’re cockroaches, but sometimes the union pulls through.

Some weirdness for the day....

2006-11-30T20:45:00.000-08:00

This choice piece made into the main section of today's LA Times. Big, bad food companies adultering organic food products, such as guacamole? I'm shocked, shocked that there could be food manipulation in agribusiness.

Try making it yourself.

Ontological Nihilists On Set

2006-11-23T15:12:00.000-08:00

Hope all the readers of the AAGH are binging on baked poultry and overly-starchy side dishes today and taking the rest of the week off.

Here in Hollywood land, the industry is basically on hiatus until next Monday, so yesterday afternoon was a busy time for casting directors. In the space of about two hours I was (1): called by my service with details for the regular show next week; (2) then called an hour later and told that day’s shoot was cancelled; then (3) 15 minutes later booked on a feature for the same day; and finally (4) called out of the blue by another casting agency wanting to know whether I owned a dog or not (for the record, I don’t), and whether I was booked for a certain future date.

Consequently, I am enjoying this day of rest in full recovery mode.

But I also need to recover a bit from a thirteen-hour gig on Tuesday on the semi-regular show.

If you’ve ever done background work, you know holding is a bit scary: nervous, twitchy, anxious actors waiting to be called to work at any moment, people dozing away in their Coleman camping chairs (mostly SAG folks who’ve seen it all), or people chatting away and a mile-a-minute pace, who really, really need to switch to decaf.

So, on Tuesday I was stuck listening to a guy going on for over an hour on why his 1970-era car should be used in more auto calls, and how he had calculated estimated payments based on said bookings if he purchased a car from the 1980’s, 1990’s, etc (and this was all the way across the room!).

Just when I thought I was going to get some rest, he then pulled out his outline for a sci-fi script and began to debate – loudly – the finer points of the genre, movie by movie.

That’s when I began to think about looking for a nail gun from the carpenter’s truck.

Luckily, I got called into set, but, as the old adage goes, “Be careful what you wish for.”

The PA set a few of relatively deep in a scene, just on the edge of frame. No hero shot, but then most background work isn’t.

However, just as the cameras and sound were rolling, a loud buzzing sound began to emanate from a woman’s purse on the ground.

It was a damn cell phone going off on vibrate mode!

Since the rest of us knew who the culprit was, we told her to turn off her phone on set. “Oh no, it can’t be mine. No one has my phone number, I don’t give it out.”

Fine. It was a wrong phone number then.

Even after we told her repeatedly to turn it off, she simply refused to it was “her phone” making that buzzing noise coming her purse, on the floor, near her feet.

Thankfully, the gates were good after that take, and sound didn’t make an issue of it.

I can take PA’s screaming at you because they made a mistake (but you get the blame), DGA trainees who set background to make complicated crosses and then cause traffic jams behind some C stand, but this was simply the case of an ontological nihilist: someone who has issues with “reality.”

So, the lesson is, turn off your phone on set!

[By the way, AAGH looks like some type of curse word or anguished cry, but that’s for another post.]

How To Act "Naturally"

2006-11-20T22:52:00.000-08:00

There's only been one television series I've made an effort to follow this season - Heroes. So I was pleased to attend a screening tonight at the SAG offices with a Q & A by nine cast members afterwards. Since it's on Monday nights, thought I might miss one episode, but the folks at NBC aren't that mean, so we saw the same episode tonight as everyone else.

The show obviously has a following, and it seemed as if some of the more energized fan base in the union attended tonight. But I and the guy sitting next to me were really surprised to hear about the casting process for those present; most received a callback for their screen test while driving away from their initial audition. One guy was walking back to his car at Universal when he got the call to immediately go over to a wardrobe trailer for a fitting.

Is that rare? You bet. Only one cast member reported having a "normal" experience with his audition. It took him several days to hear back from the producers.

Now a "normal" aspect of background work is that you don't often get to do bona fide reaction shots - that's when you are either asked to express some emotion to actions made by a principal, or interact with them. It all depends on the director and how he/she envisions the shot.

Luckily, for the "regular" gig I work almost every week, this happens a lot, especially with those of us established as regular office people, but sometimes weird stuff happens.

And that's what happened a couple weeks ago.

In one bar scene (now this wacky, screwball comedy), one of the leads vies for the affection, and a date, from a very attractive employee - and so does his archrival, who doesn't stop at hitting on her, or other women in the bar, even after he rips off his shirt to get her attention.

So our 2nd2nd AD told us this hilarious story about the reaction shot that we all thought would survive the cutting room floor.

It was a relatively big call for this show, so holding had lots of background waiting for turnaround shots, etc, most being non-union and new to the show.

When the director changed the scene to include the archrival guy hitting on other women in the bar, he asked the 2nd to "get some nice looking girl."

Therefore, our guy goes marching through holding on a mission to find "the one," and found a young, blonde woman sort of snoozing while waiting to be called to set (don't snicker - we all do it - especially the union folk).

So on set he tells her, "Oh yeah, this actor will come up and ask you something at the end of the scene," but nothing more.

Naturally, when she was waiting to do some pantomiming before the director yelled "cut," she never envisioned having a naked torso guy dancing around in front of her, yelling and singing, "Hey babe, where you from?"

Of course, her eyes popped out of her head at this sight, and the director shouted, "Cut! Print that one! New deal."

She will probably remember it as a somewhat horrible day on set, but I would bet good money her face makes it to Fox TV next year.

PS - In case you always wondered about those crew job terms where in the final credits, Peggy Archer has given a brief summary on her blog. And if you ever do stand in work, you need to know who these people are, since you are helping the DP, CLT (gaffer), and - usually - two camera OPs block the scene.

PSS - Am trying to update this blog before heading out to an early morning call tomorrow with the TV tuned to What About Brian. Great! I finally get to see myself doing a few key crosses and sitting next to William Devane. Funny thing is most of the union background on that call are regulars on the "other" show we work - basically every episode (but more about that when we all learn the airing date). The casting director works both shows, so we were literally picked-up from one set of skins and cast on Brian for a location shot.

Even the lowly get photo doubles....

2006-10-30T21:23:00.000-08:00

Last summer, before the series season took off, I was lucky to nab a fitting for a big emmy-winning series, with the promise of a couple workdates when shooting began.

It was only afterwards when I sat down with the key 2nd that I learned they wanted to give me a featured background part (the difference between featured and regular BG roles? If you can recognize yourself on screen, instead of a swoosh in front of the camera, that's kind of featured role).

Nice, but some weeks later I got the call, "Shooting schedule has changed. We'll be in touch."

Eventually they did, some ten weeks later, and when I showed up on set the other guys kept asking, "Hey, where is (Gilan)? And who are you?"

When we got around to filming, it was reshoot and everyone knew where they had been placed the previous week - everyone but me.

And then I learned that I was there to photo double for a fellow backgrounder who couldn't make it that day. Apparently, the two of us look similiar, and surprisingly so from the back of the head.

Consequently, the 1st AD asked me to keep showing the "back of my head" whenever we rolled, which made for some interesting poses (ex: an elevator with everyone looking out, except me, standing with my back to the camera).

Some weeks later, I worked a four camera show, and actually met my mysterious photo double! He had been sick, so couldn't shoot that day, but our heads and hair are close enough for film. He was returning to the other set the next day, so I'm sure that crew had a bunch of laughs about it.

Oh yeah, and when I turned in my wardrobe, they said, "See you soon." Hmm. Ten weeks and used once for somebody else. I think not, and I'm happy to work my other regular shows instead.

Geez, Thank for Your Support....

2006-10-26T10:28:00.000-07:00

There's nothing quite like working your tail off on set for 2+ weeks, then finally turning on the laptop only to have a newbie blogger flame you.

I was thinking about putting the Angry Anthropologist on a short-term hiatus when work got busy, but orignally thought against it.

I think it's time to reconsider.

One of the nice things about being a regular on a full-run, or near full-run television series is the constant work and the peculiarity of seeing the same people on set day after day.

That was last week, when we shot a full episode in five days - five days with plenty of OT that kind of burned me out on writing at night. Obviously, this hindered my writing since the vainglorious day of professional background actor last week went something like this:

2 hrs morning LA traffic commute to 20th Century Fox studio
12.5 hrs ave. workday
1 hr lunch
1 hr evening LA traffic commute home
=========================
16.5 hrs total

That leaves a whopping 7.5 hours in the day to wash clothes for matching shot the next day, eat something, and actually try to sleep, and in the battle between blogging and sleep/food, the latter wins out.

On top of that, on Saturday I got to sleep at 12:30 AM, only to get up early, and promising myself a hike trekked up Mnt. Pacifico on the backrange of the San Gabriel Mountains (only 12 miles), rushed down to a wine tasting with friends from high school, then watched the World Series on the couch with one eye proped open to ward of sleep, which I did for much of Sunday.

On Monday? Back to the lot for the start of the next episode. And so it goes. Even as I write this I'm off to a location shot downtown, and expect to be back on the regular gig tomorrow.

Last Friday was also noteworthy in that we worked with a chimp, who I suspect was paid more than the SAG background. For those of us in that scene, we had to negotiate these two conflicting cultural frames:

Trainer: "Don't look the chimp in the eyes - it's a threat."

1st AD: "Be sure to react off the chimp - make sure your eyeline is on the chimp at all times."

Great.

Next time, a story about meeting a fellow backgrounder who I photo-doubled for.

My 10,064 ft. Saturday

2006-10-14T21:16:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the dearth of posts this month, but I'm burned out from the last two weeks.

First, I worked most of the last two weeks on a tuxedo, fancy ball shoot which entailed both dancing to the same number repeatedly, or sitting for multiple shots pretending to like the person sitting next to you. Long hours, lots of OT, plus the always welcome formal dress pay bump outlined in the SAG Background Contract. (BTW, "formal dress" for men also includes a "white, Palm Beach suit" although I've never heard of a Palm Beach suit casting call.

It's just that the parental units in town took off on a long trip, and asked your truly to help with watering and other domestic chores, less the little green plants die on them. Others, namely my brother, was also asked to assist, but then had a sudden business trip out of state, leaving me to conduct midnight to 1AM watering sessions in my old neighborhood complete in a formal, black tuxedo.

Someone down the block must have been thinking, "Even the burglars are upscale in this part of town."

Then, I got the call last week for a show which I had been offered a featured, regular background role. Nice. Then the CD called and said, "Shooting schedule's changed - I'll let you know." That was more than ten weeks ago. Upon arriving to set, I then learned that I was photo doubling for another backgrounder. The other regulars chimed in unison, "Gee, you look just like [Bob]! You could be brothers!"

Obviously, Bob got the part weeks ago, but no great loss. Starting Monday I'm back on my regular gig, which bodes well for the rest of the shooting season. And for that day? The 1st said, "Be sure not to show your face too much, since you're another guy in this reshoot"

No what about the figure above?

I've been trying to retrace some of the more spectacular hikes in the San Gabriel Wilderness that I did in my youth. Today, with a storm system blowing through the southland, I trekked up Mt. San Antonio, also called Old Baldy to locals. Thirteen strenuous miles, 3,800' elevation gain, but better yet, blustery wind conditions (i.e., 40-50 mph gusts at the summit), with snow! All the way up to 10,064 feet after traversing the Devil's Backbone.

And what was at the summit, apart from a sign - four very cold, yelling Japanese tourists who insisted on having me snap a phone camera image of them, huddled together and beginning to show signs of hypothermia!!!

And I thought I just worked in a weird industry.

Time-Space Compression On Set

2006-09-21T23:31:00.000-07:00

How do you work six days of work over five days? Easy - Do what I did this week.

I was recalled on the regular gig today; only three union backgrounders waiting around for hours and hours. The call sheet indicated that we would be working most scenes, and the key 2nd AD told one of us, "Hope you brought a book."

But, as things happen, they changed the shooting shedule and wrapped us early, just in time to fight rush hour traffic through Los Angeles. Bleh.

And it was on the way back that I got a call from the big casting agency, "Hey, we'd like to know where you are since you are booked to be on show X at this hour." "Woah!" was my reaction, since I had been recalled for show Y that day.

A recalled background actor, you see, takes the highest precedence: If you are established in a scene, and they need to shoot an additional day, casting directors can pull you off other shows, even if booked long in advance, so as not to ruin the continuity of a scene. It's one of the golden rules of the business.

Problem is, the agency recalled on one show, but forgot to take me off the skins (i.e., background actor rosters) on the other show. Whoops! Not my mistake, thank goodness.

Since I was en route home, I said I could work this other show, even with the traffic and a wardrobe bag packed for formal clothes - not what was requested on this gig. "Perfect," he said, and so I turned around and headed back to the westside of LA.

So, I show up "technically" two hours late, but the AD informs me he heard all about it from the CD, so I'm off the hook. In fact, I'm they guy who looks good, since they didn't have to put out a rush call to fill the slot.

And what would that be? Well, it was a four-camera show, so today was rehearsal day, and I'm recalled for the live audience shoot tomorrow. Quick stuff, a simple cross, to be done on tape in front of an audience. Not even close to eight hours either today, or tomorrow.

But, according to union and non-union rules, you get your eight hours mininum in anyway.

Ergo, I'm looking at two full-day union pay vouchers for one hectic day of driving and waiting.

Late Night, Early Morning

2006-09-20T23:49:00.000-07:00

So, the regular gig finally pays off. Worked 12 1/2 hours with wardrobe changes and meal penalties. Many reading this little corner-of-cyberspace blog would hate to work such long hours, but that's what background actors hope for: it's all about the penalties and overtime which can turn one day's work into two, or three day's pay.

Then the agency calls, "You're booked on a four-camera show tomorrow."

A different casting director who hasn't worked with me much. Nice, a good chance to get some feeback to him.

Perfect, that means a day of quick rehearsals, and one day shooting in front of a live studio audience (preceded, as some of you know, by an early-evening freebie bing at the commisary - it's tradition).

Then, a few hours later, another call, "You're recalled on XXXX, per the casting director."

OK, change is the norm in this business. But then I learn that only three backgrounders are recalled - lots of camera time, but a quick turnabout after trying to wash laundry to match clothes for two days of shoots this week.

So, the CD likes us, the 2nd 2nd AD likes us. Feel free to do so until the paychecks pan out.

Never A Quick Exit....

2006-09-19T22:10:00.000-07:00

Rats...

I had a good day on set, a lengthy drive to and from a location shot, went to the gym for a hard two hour workout, then set down to write my previous post and watch some of the premieres, including "Smith," where I worked the wedding reception scene last spring.

Then, the phone rings...

"Hi Stephen, this is xxxx Casting, your call time has been pulled by one half hour tomorrow morning - early."

Yeah, it's 10:00 PM, and that's a relatively early call, thank goodness. Typically, they'll call in the early AM, just in time to disturb you quality-time sleep.

Pushes (meaning later call times), they don't care about, but earlier times, yes. The worst are features (i.e., films) where a call time might be pushed by three to four hours. When you get that call, start driving to set, because they will inevitably ring one to two hours before the new call time with an, "Get to set ASAP!" call.

This means you rush through check-in, wardrobe, then pour yourself a nice cup of coffee because you're going to wait for three to four hours before they actually shoot. But, hey, you're still getting pay.

So, much as in the previous post, learn to be flexible in this biz, otherwise you will be a deflated tennis ball, wacked to and fro across the net.

Welcome to the movie and TV business.

Being Flexible

2006-09-19T21:26:00.000-07:00

There are certain adages in this business which help you negotiate the craziness and keep your brain cells intact.

The first is, "you never actually watch the shows you work on, you just collect a paycheck."

How true.

You can tell a newbie backgrounder by the frisson they exhibit when walking on set, "Oh my God! I can't believe I'm working with so-and-so," etc.

They are actually excited about doing crosses behing a big A-lister.

Give me a break.

I've worked long enough now in this industry not to be impressed by that stuff. In the real world, you can tell a backgrounder vet by the following:

1. They want to to know if the crew is good.
2. They want to to know if this gig will get them loads of overtime.
3. They want to know if crafty is noteworthy.

I'm having a wacky week, so pardon the crazy post. First, I go to my season-regular gig on Monday. Wardrobe asks for two complete clothing changes (that's two pay bumps), which also means overtime. After a morning of face-on hero shots with the 1st team, we had lunch, then got the word - "you're all wrapped." Crikey! Where did the OT go?!

No matter, spent valuable time today on a stand-in gig on a yet-to-be-released show with A-listers: Four hours of work for eight hours of pay with mileage and saw a bunch of fellow stand-ins and production friends. It was a nice reunion.

Then, I get the call: You're booked on the season-regular gig for tomorrow with another wardrobe change! Go figure. I'll let you know how it turned out.

Be Careful What You Wish For...

2006-09-12T18:43:00.000-07:00

Last week was great - a full four days with overtime on two gigs (one is a regular - I'm on almost every episode for the season, the other was new).

And being back on a soundstage was a nice bonus. See, just before the holiday weekend, I did a location shoot out near Palmdale. It was sunny, and over 100 degrees, which isn't bad in and of itself, but when you're the featured person that day, playing with kids, lifting stuff, it makes a difference.

Of course, since we were all sweltering in the dry heat, this episode takes place in Arizona, at Christmas time. Lots of heavy coats, boots, hats, etc. Everything to part you from the water you need to survive as a biological entity. One BG had a tire blow out in the heat, and my old car needed the resevoir filled when I got back home.

So, the soundstage sounded like a really nice change, until I got to the second gig of the week. Our holding was directly underneath a large, meanacing, HVAC duct, spilling out cold air on top of us. The second day, most of arrived wearing wintercoats at the studio gate, which made for a few strange looks. Late that night, some of us were noshing at crafty when one of the principals notice our out-of-season garb. "Hey? You guys cold or something?"

Yeah, another tale from a background warrior. At this rate, I'll be happy to report on an "average" temp on set

Standoff

2006-09-06T09:30:00.000-07:00

Fox aired the premiere of Standoff last night, and I was watching, but this time, not just for myself. When we shot this back in March, I was pulled out by the technical advisor and placed near the command tent with the backgrounders portraying FBI technicians. While waiting for the next shot, one guy approached and said, "Hey Steve, remember me?"

It was one of my high school classmates, who does background work on a part-time basis.

And that's how weird the business can be at times, if not most of the time.

The other interesting factoid about Standoff (originally called Primary when filming the pilot) is the opening scene. It took place on 7th Street in downtown Los Angeles near the 110 Freeway. We shut down a whole city block and dealt with pedestrians and curious on-lookers while rolling. Such is the case for location shots.

At one point, a semi-deluded homeless man kept screaming at the crew from the next block (now, this isn't particularly strange or unusual - the homeless in downtown LA tend to scream a lot, especially at film crews). The director, Tim Story, kept looking up the block, along with the other crew members in video village. I thought he was going to send someone to quiet the guy up, but instead he told the others, "No, no... I'm just interested in what the guy is trying to say.

Recalled on one of my regular gigs for later today.

A Week in the Life

2006-09-04T20:57:00.000-07:00

Nothing is more pathetic, or typical, of LA than an actor helping another actor move boxes when one has a truck. And that was how I spent a couple days this past week when not on set. Hence, the lack of posts to the literally dozens of you who tune into this blog from time to time.

What's a working actor's life like during the week? Well, one day I worked a nice gig on location: great crew, good PA's, excellent catering (always important). But it just so happened that I was staggered in with a bunch of non-unioners who gawked at my union voucher (the PA had to run to the truck to get mine - I was the sole one at the midday call). The result? Hours of "How did you...," "How can I...," "What recommendations can you give..." and so on.

Another day: Rushed to make a interview for a featured role with the 1st AD of the show. I arrive after battling traffic, changing shirts, and trying to make my tie look sharp in 100 degree heat. Upon arrival I heard, "Oh yeah, the interview. Umm, they changed the script on me. We don't need you this episode, but maybe....." followed by an inquisitive look. Anyone who's survived an audition (which could fill an army), know this was the moment to sell yourself. I tried, we'll see, and I'll keep you all informed.

Then, near the end of the week, had a call out in the desert. I arrived early, grabed some breakfast off the truck, and checked-in. Turns out this was a nice featured role for a popular cable show just starting the new shoots for the season* (won't say which, read disclaimer below). However, it involved a family scene with a Christmas tree, heavy parkas, and couple of lively boys portraying my kids. Try lifting kids on film for 3+ hours in 103 degree heat in a parka and you will know what dehydration feels like. Did a half-day of work, paid for a full eight hours (union rules), plus mileage and a car bump. Not too bad, given that I beat the weekend traffic back into LA.

Lastly, it's nice to turn on the tube and get a nice surpise, when it's not your face on screen. The battle over the California propositions has just started, but it's paid off for at least one fellow actor. Imagine my surprise when I turned on the tube this weekend and saw a "typical California voter" outlining reasons against one particular proposition - surprised because the last time we worked together was a recent gig as stand-ins on a yet-to-be-released pilot with a roster of A-listers. She was preping for an audition in the morning, and I was watching the hours tick away towards 3:00 AM, knowing that I had a 7:00 AM call time at another studio, and wondering if I was going to get any sleep that night (I did - two full hours). Clearly, she got the part! By the way, if you are shocked that political ads use union actors to depict voters, my recommendation is: Time to wake up, smell the coffee, grow up, and get a life!

* As a rule, I don't announce which shows I've been on until they have fully aired. There are a couple reasons. First, as a professional actor you are involved in production - story lines change and information to which you are privy might not want to be released by the studio. Once they have done so, then it's public. Two, even the choicest featured role sometimes gets left on the cutting room floor. You never really know if the footage they took will be included until the darn thing is aired on the tube, or released on screen.

Workin' Hard

2006-08-13T16:02:00.000-07:00

I know I'm not the most compulsive blogger in the world, but my laptop's OS went AWOL this week, and I'm waiting for the disks to come in so I can be fully connected again. I'm borrowing a sibling's Mac for this post, which makes me feel like driving on the other side off the road.

The other reason for the delay in posting is, well, work, and lots of it. I'm starting a couple shows as a regular and recently completed standing in for a couple week for an A-lister. The turnarounds have been tight - last week I had one gig wrap at 2:30 AM only to be booked at another studio at 7:30 AM. Ouch is the operative word.

Working full-time like this is what background performers wish and hope for, and ironically is one of of the arguments against going union (i.e., joining SAG): With fewer union slots, albeit for higher pay and benefits, union roles are harder to get.

And this is what a friend of mine ran into several weeks ago. He earned his fourth SAG voucher and is therefore a "must join" background performer, if he wants to continue to receive SAG vouchers. Since he's been working for that moment for well over half a year, it was a happy day. That is, until one of the malcontents in holding cried out, "Don't join - you'll never work again!"

Upon hearing that, several of us wheeled around and announced that we had our busiest hiatus in years, much to this fellow's surprise. It's a common complaint heard on sets. I worked with one woman last week who hasn't worked since May.

Now, that is a surprise. But, when you pry deeper, you begin to pick out a few facts.

First and foremost: Acting is a business. You must sell yourself. You must get a good reputation among the casting directors and - most importantly - they have to know you are! A lot, probably most of the "complainers" I meet have never met the casting directors that book them, nor written them letters, thank you notes, or updates from the set. They don't make an effort to know the production team on set. And even with excellent training and looks, it takes a bit more to get steady work.

Think about it. If this were any other business, say sales, you wouldn't get much of an income by waiting for the phone to ring.

Just my two pennies off a borrowed iBook and the neighbor's WiFi.

Going, Going, Gone Hollywood

2006-08-06T20:51:00.000-07:00

So much for the field of education and research – all that grad school, dead-end teaching and part-time managerial stuff. Some of those close to this site know by now that the former Happy Valley College elected to go with another Director of Assessment Services with no previous ties to the college while I was toiling away in the office, leaving me to do…what?

Well, for some time now I’ve had another part-time job which is now a full-time gig with income, pension contributions, and health benefits. Friends of TAA, such as Todd, have already “outed” me.

But not that type of “outed” you’re thinking of.

See, my part-time work was working as a background actor in television and film.

A lot of aspiring actors eschew the background route – they consider it demeaning, not worthy of their talents and training, nothing more than an amorphous face in the crowd.

And a lot of these same people aren’t members of the Screen Actors Guild, and won’t be for a while with that attitude.

On the other hand, if you are serious, and responsible, strange things can happen. Almost every day player and freelancer I’ve spoken with has said, “Oh yeah, I started out doing background, it got me into the union and helped me get my first few breaks.”

And that’s what happened with me, not just the SAG card, but more than a few featured roles. And after a while I started getting the phone calls, “Stephen, you’ve been photo selected by the director,” and offers of print jobs, and the voicemail numbers of casting directors who said, “If you want to work tomorrow, just drop me a line.”

Sometime you do just do crosses in front of the camera, and then, sometimes, you get the hero shot – like wrestling Eva Longoria on Desperate Housewives last season (I was the cop who took away Gabby’s adopted baby and drove off with the birth parents). And, if you’re union, the offers start rolling in: such as working as a stand-in, or a getting a stint as a regular on a returning series (guaranteed three to four days of work per episode).

So, what’s up for the future of this site?

As a professionally trained anthropologist, I approach most social settings with an eye to social organization and cultural frames that people use to categorize and negotiate their social universe.

That’s precisely what I did when I first landed on set – to me, it’s one big research project that never ends being interesting. Most people envision “Hollywood” as the product they see on a screen or DVD, or an abstract entity pushed by PR types on the nightly celebrity news shows. To me, the minutiae of daily life on the set is what’s interesting. Take a peek at Peggy Archer's blog on being a crew member in this town for one such view.

For me, however, it’s about being that face in the crowd, and sometimes that face you see clearly on the tube.

So, from time to time I’ll provide you all with some good stories from the set, personal notions (or rants) about what makes a good/bad background actor, and decorum in general, in a classic ethnographic sense, or at least a good story.

Stay tuned….

Changes Coming... Stay Tuned

2006-06-17T15:00:00.000-07:00

Yes, after a long hiatus, the Angry Anthro will soon be back online. The career trajectory took a weird, unforseen angle, albeit one that is highly entertaining (those of you in the know will forgive the joke). So, stay tuned and check back periodically, if only for the copious links to your right.

Hollywood Reality, Hollywood Gloss

2006-03-02T13:24:00.000-08:00

Yeah, yeah, the whole world is anxiously awaiting Sunday's Oscar bash, or the day-before antipodal Independent Spirit Awards, but if you really want to learn about what's going on in Hollywood, skip the glossy, front-page of the daily paper, and take a look back in the Business Section of today's LA Times:

For 18 years, Mark Karen has worked behind the camera, carefully framing shots on movies and television shows from "Titanic" to "Star Trek: Voyager."

But the 45-year-old Los Angeles resident sees a bleak picture of his own future.

The reason: a proposed contract change that for the first time would remove a requirement that camera operators like Karen be used on feature films. Instead, the new contract would allow directors of photography, commonly known as "DPs," to operate cameras on features and episodic television shows.

The seemingly innocuous concession — contained in a draft contract for Hollywood's so-called below-the-line workers — has roiled the ranks of camera operators, who have worked hand in glove with DPs since the days of talkies."

It means I'm going to be out of a career," Karen predicted.

What the?....

2006-03-01T09:21:00.000-08:00

Some mornings - most mornings in fact - are horribly quotidian: Same breakfast foods, same coffee, same egotisitical nut asking you for your morning paper, then complaining when you refuse (see previous post).

And then, occassionally, out of the blue, you open the paper and are given the wake-up call. That happened today when I read this:

A False Note to the New Year in Pasadena

A lawsuit contends that school officials tried to cover up importing musicians to march in the city district's band in the 2006 Rose Parade.

By Bob Pool, Times Staff WriterMarch 1, 2006

Did a group of ringers secretly ring in the new year at Pasadena's 2006 Rose Parade?

The answer is yes. But that hasn't resolved a lawsuit over whether officials at the Pasadena Unified School District tried to cover up what they did.

And then this:

Amid growing criticism, the executive producer of KTLA-TV's "Morning News" defended the show's decision last week to accept free accommodations in exchange for broadcasting its morning program from the newly renovated Ritz-Carlton Huntington Hotel & Spa in Pasadena.

And finally, this item:

A Chinese dissident facing felony charges that could have led to his deportation pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor and was released Tuesday, a Los Angeles County official said.

Zhang Hongbao, the leader of a Chinese spiritual group with an estimated following of 30 million, had been accused of five felony counts related to the alleged beating of his housekeeper in his Pasadena home in 2003.

So much for the boring news from a little city in the foothills of the San Gabriel Valley.

Hands Off My Morning Paper!

2006-02-28T12:18:00.000-08:00

Back in the pundit saddle, albeit on a part-time basis.

For those of you who – amazingly – still find your way through the cybersphere to this crass corner of complaints, thank you for visiting. I’ve had a few unexpected turns in recent months (mostly for the better), and will update you all in the near future. Basically, I’m looking at a complicated fork in the proverbial road, and have to choose which of the many tines I’m going to continue on for years to come. No doubt, many of you have experienced the same thing.

But, to get back into form, my rant du jour centers on coffee house etiquette. To be brutally honest, I need and covet my morning caffeine. To that end, I hang out with a bunch of regulars at Peets in Pasadena (Starbucks sucks, but is a necessary evil when conditions warrant), and have done so for years.

Now, I’m a plain coffee type of guy, so I can’t imagine spending $4.50 on a latte with more flavors and calories than most milkshakes. But, if you’re going to spend that much, don’t you think you could spend an additional 50 cents on the damn paper?!

See, my friends joke that no matter where I am sitting, or doing, someone will invariably approach and try to take my LA Times paper away from me, as if I’m the communal paper basket. This happens at all times of the day, and even outside (one time, a guy came off the sidewalk while I’m still reading a section and asked, “Hey guy, you done with the paper yet?”). They’ll even try to yank out a section from under my seat, with my foot on it! (And it happened again this morning.)

Who knows why this happens – I think it’s akin to what the British writer Toby Young calls his, “negative charisma,” when he enters a room, people immediately hate him before they know anything about him. Somehow, I must have the look of, “Take my paper – please….”

My jaded advice: Peets isn’t the Union Rescue Mission. If you there to buy the expensive coffee and more-than-expensive snacks, you can reach down into your pockets and shell out an additional two quarters. Get the damn paper yourself.

Another Pasadena Passing....

2006-02-28T11:44:00.000-08:00

FYI, reknown Pasadena-born science fiction-writer Octavia Butler has died.

From the front page of today's Pasadena Star News:

PASADENA - Octavia Butler, the Pasadena native who was one of the nation's leading science-fiction writers and whose first novel, "Kindred," is Pasadena's 2006 One City, One Story book selection, died Friday. She was 58.

Butler died after falling and striking her head on the cobbled walkway outside her home in the north Seattle suburb of Lake Forest Park.

Fowl Most Fresh

2005-11-23T18:14:00.000-08:00

On the Eve of Turkey Day many cash-stuffed folk will turn their thoughts, and forks, to their favorite festive bird - usually one that is fully dressed, shrink-wrapped, and frozen to Kelvin scale depths. For the more upscale, there are heirloom birds, such as those reported in this week's LA Weekly by Jonathan Gold.

But, for the more adventuresome, the LA Times gave morning readers a nice shock with a report on a thriving slaughterhouse serving a mostly immigrant clientele, who prefer to pick and choose from the winged offerings. Five minutes from pen to plastic bag - try that at a Honey Baked Ham store tonight! And for those of you getting squeamish, remember I ate bugs during my fieldwork. Get over it. Besides, the old Angelino families remember when Sunday dinner required killing a chicken from the coop - my father did that most of his childhood life in Pomona. Now a days you only get to count the chickens riding the Gold Line to Union Station.

Before you take a bite of the chemically-enriched Butterball tomorrow, take a peek at the article. Too bad it wasn't included in the Times Food section, something about advertising revenue....

But if you won't read it for the ethnographic background, read it for the honed rhetoric like this:

Today, Samy Morsy is so deft with his 12-inch chef knife that it seems that he could turn a turkey into a hood ornament if he were asked to.

Soon coming to a fashionable vehicle near you.

The Need and the Loathing

2005-11-18T16:17:00.000-08:00

It's late on a Friday aftenoon, the college has gone to bed before the sun is down, and I'm not going to let Warren, David, Joel, Kira, and the others have all the fun with a little Google-magic (all the better to procrastinate and put off finishing another scene).

Here are some results for "Formosus needs" in Google:

The disinterred corpose of Pope Formosus (891-894) was brought before the...

Phosphorous needs of some Australian Plants. Swainsona, canescens, colutoides, formosus, tephrotricha...

Joseph, Ras, Neal, and Formosus. Chris, Trish, and Andie... (Wait a minute! That's from Warren's site - and he suggested this excercise. Hmmm...)

Red Cone Flower (lsopogon formosus): see it and grow it...

Scientific name: Oporornis formosus...

When switched off, the Scleropages Formsous are not moving at all of course...

The main plot deals with the trick of Formosus to obtain 3000 crowns from his miserly father Amadeus...

Dances with Screenwriters

2005-11-16T17:38:00.000-08:00

Spent last weekend nursing a lingering cough, and attending the 4th Annual Screenwriting Expo, sponsored by Creative Screenwriting magazine. It was my first time attending and it was rather surprising to be amidst almost 4,000 writers, but then I was surprised to be among 5,000 anthropologists the first time I attended the AAA gathering. Lots of sights, lots of people, and even more stories, which usually constitute the most informative aspect of conventions, and the most entertaining.

Like other writing get-togethers, the Expo was a great venue for the usually solitary to get support, learn that there are actually other people out there who are just as geeky as you think you are, and commiserate with fellow writers over rejection - preferably with an 80 proof libation in hand.

I attended some classes, a panel or two, and many of the Guest of Honor sessions, but more about that later. As I was walking around the trade show, scanning through the xeroxed detritus strewn over abandoned tables, I had this lingering thought....

Am I the only one who thinks that the market for writing products and services is strangely similiar to the market for sex products and services? There are hundreds of companies offering magazines, videos, and "coverage or feedback" (usually in the back of cheap magazines) offering “secrets” (for a price) that purport to make you a "better practitioner," allowing you to "write longer, better, with more passion, all leading to a strong finish." The place was rife with psychoanalytic subtext. But then, after too many years of graduate school I can never look at any social gathering without some weird theoretical interpretation.

If you want to glance at some photos, take a peek at the collection from Warren, Joel, and Shawna.

Instead of the rundown of classes and panels, here are some of the more colorful quotes I heart at Expo 4:

William Goldman: “What I want you to come away from this Expo is this – All critics are failures and whores.”

David Koepp: “Everyone in this business has to be told what to do, directors, actors, so on, except for the writer. We can go home tonight, open a new file on our computer and start to work on a new project – no one has to tell us to do it. And that’s why they hate us.”

Marc & Elaine Zicree: “If you hear the following: ‘Thanks for coming in’, ‘Interesting…’, or ‘Call my agent’, you’re toast.” On the other hand, “If they say, ‘Who’s your agent?’ they want your script.”

Richard Walter: (quoting someone else) “It is actions that define character, and not the other way around.”

Richard Walter: (again) “There are only two things in scripts: The stuff that’s seen – the wide margins; and the stuff that’s said – the narrow margins.”

David Freeman: “I wasn’t born with an Earth Mother gene…”

But the best was probably at the blogger rendezvous Sunday night: “Yes, I was a Pumpkin Princess” from Shawna.

Carrots Without the Sticks

2005-10-25T11:38:00.000-07:00

Buried in the back pages of today's LA Times is a gem of an article highlighting the questionable empirical evidence for economic enterprise zones, which have lately been touted by W. as a response to the aftermath of Katrina.

Call me an old-line positivist, but for something to have effectively changed, beyond normal variation, the data must support the evidence. Take a read:

Over the last 10 years, the federal government has chartered 40 empowerment zones and 40 renewal communities, both of which offer tax breaks to qualifying businesses. One is in Los Angeles. Another covers a portion of New Orleans.

In addition to the federal areas, many states and cities have their own enterprise zone programs.

Over the years, economists have attempted to measure the effectiveness of the zones. Some studies have found statistical evidence of higher rates of economic growth and job creation. Others have not. Several analysts who reviewed past research have told Congress the overall results are inconclusive.

When asked for empirical evidence that enterprise zones work, the White House and the Treasury Department cited a 2001 study by the Department of Housing and Urban Development, which oversees the federal programs.

HUD looked at the first six urban zones established during the Clinton administration. They were in Atlanta, Baltimore, Chicago, Detroit, New York and Philadelphia.

Of the six, four experienced greater job growth than comparable areas where the special benefits were not available, the HUD study said, and owners reported that the climate for doing business had improved.

But two zones fared worse than comparable areas, and 65% of businesses in the six areas reported no benefit from being in empowerment zones. In addition, few firms took advantage of the tax credits, and more than half of those that used them said they were of little or no importance in hiring or investing decisions.

HUD said it was unable to reach conclusions about the effectiveness of the zones.

Bad Food is Universal

2005-10-21T16:11:00.000-07:00

Anthropologists disagree vehemently about the extent of human cultural universals, but for the cynics in the crowd two items are head and shoulders above the rest: utter stupidity and really bad food.

Another Column One example of Pulitzer-level reportage today from the LA Times strikes yet another blow to globalization of food trends. Target, this time - Mexico - and the food, Japanese instant noodles:

That's a brand of instant ramen noodles that to him means lunch. Leon's grandmother stocks them in her tiny grocery store in this hamlet 40 miles southwest of the capital. The preschooler prefers his shrimp-flavor ramen with a dollop of liquid heat.

"With salsa!" he said exuberantly at the mention of his favorite noodle soup.

Through the centuries, Moorish spices, French pastries and Spanish citrus have left lasting impressions on Mexico's cuisine. Now Japanese fast-food noodles, first imported here in the 1980s, are filling pantries across the country.

Time-pressed school kids, construction workers and office drones have helped turn Mexicans into Latin America's largest per-capita consumers of instant ramen. Diners here slurped down 1 billion servings last year, up threefold since 1999, according to a Japanese noodle association.

My worst food experiences in Mexico were tacos made with roasted grasshoppers and dried, salted tripe wrapped in a tortilla, but hey - those were at least authentic.

I hope the Times continues to give front-page coverage to food articles banned from the haute cuisine afficionados in the Food Sections on Wednesdays. A week ago, the World section also reported on the popularity of Spam gift baskets in Korea (Oct. 15 - go check it out if you can get past the registration barricade).

Morning Reading Fun

2005-10-05T10:22:00.000-07:00

Angelinos love their cars, and more literate Angelinos (the few, the proud) are turning to Dan Neil's weekly auto review in the LA times. A past Pulitzer-prize winner, Neil combines the best of over-the-top sports rhetoric with a few witty Chandlerisms in most of his columns.

Today's piece on the new Mazda Miata MX-5 was particularly enoyable. For those of you who don't regularly get a chance to read amusing columns with the morning coffee, here are some choice excerpts:

MAZDA Miata, how do I love thee? Let me count the days.

Um, two
***************
From its fiercely flatulent dual-exhaust note and buzzy metabolism to its stunt-kite agility, the MX-5 is all about sensory involvement.

Which is great, absolutely brilliant, two days a week, when the MX-5 can find the empty onramps and lightly patrolled canyon roads to practice its unique brand of necromancy. Weekdays, though, this car is a rolling root canal.
****************
It doesn't help that the car's final-drive ratio is 4.10:1 and that peak torque (140 pound-feet) resides at 5,000 rpm. Put it all together and you have a car that is screaming bloody jihad at 25 mph if you don't shift into second gear.
****************
The MX-5 is the sort of car for which two-car garages were made.
****************
The central console, shaped like one end of a snowboard, holds the fuss-free climate and audio panels. Most notable is the band of shiny black plastic — "piano black" only if your piano is made by Mattel — which, unless I'm mistaken, is the same material that appears in the Ford Fusion (Mazda is a corporate holding of the Ford Motor Co.).
****************
But the car lives for cornering forces. Once it finds its posture, the MX-5 clings to a white line like Kate Moss.
****************
It's not easy to sap the joy out of a car like this — this artful dodger, this blithe spirit — but somehow, Los Angeles manages.

Stuff like this makes waking up fun.

A Thought for the Day

2005-09-29T10:52:00.000-07:00

Those of you who have taken a peek at the long list of links on my sidebar know that I enjoy reading literature, and I've written some myself, even though my training and background leans towards the formal side of social science research.

From time to time, I meet other bibliophiles and aspiring writers, many of whom think that the writing process mandates attendance at writing seminars, or at least an MFA.

The question I always think of is, "How did the great writers in the past write so well without the self-help groups, without endless books on the topic, without a graduate degree?"

See, when I was seeking funding for my dissertation research, I eschewed the "how to get your research grant" books (i.e., Sage publications), and focused instead on reading lots of research grants in my field, and others, and asking faculty members who had written successful grants for their recommendations. After I took all this information in, I wrote - I wrote a lot - multiple drafts of each grant.

Consequently, I was a Fulbright Fellow, and was awarded funding from the National Science Foundation, the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research, and others.

So, I'm always a bit baffled by those who flock to the "after-market" for creative writers. No doubt, part of it is a social support system for what is admitedly a lonely and solitary craft, but it is also a very good way to: 1) part you from your valuable time and money; and 2) delay the inevitable, which is - writing! The British novelist Martin Amis once advised the worried-writer crowd with, "you simply must put the doubt and fear aside, and write."

I was thinking about this the other day while rereading a great book, "The 101 Habits of Highly Successful Screenwriters" by Karl Iglesias (Avon, MA: Adams Media Corp.). A few choice passages in the section, "Point #15: Educating Yourself" echoed my thoughts.

Ron Bass

I came up to (a Stanford professor) after class one day and said, "I really want to write fiction What writing courses should I take?" He said, "Never, ever, ever take a writing course, never read a book about writing, never let anybody tell you how to write. Take literature courses, read, steal, turn everything to your interpretation. As soon as you take a writing course, it's the beginning of the end, because you establish someone else as the authority for how you can write, and it can't be. Writing is an art, it comes individually out of you. Only you can express your art your way, it's an expression of who you are. I can't tell you how to write, Fitzgerald couldn't tell you, Faulkner couldn't tell you."

Scott Rosenberg

It's very difficult to teach someone how to write characters and dialogue. I believe that with the best screenwriters, it's a God-given talent. What you can learn, however, is structure. And you don't even have to go to film school to learn. You can pretty much get that out of a couple books.

Robin Swicord

At the same time, I'm not sure anyone can teach you how to write. All writing is self-taught.

Lessons? Stop reading this blog and go back to writing - I am.

The ABCs of Chinese Food

2005-09-28T16:55:00.000-07:00

Los Angeles County uses a letter-grade system to alert the public to "healthy" and "unhealthy" food. Some patrons were surprised to see poor marks for their favorite eateries when this system began a few years back (i.e., my beloved taco trucks - but that's another post), and the more squeamish foodies still check out the grade before trying a new place.

So today I was amused to read a Column One article in the LA Times on Chinese restaurants in the San Gabriel Valley which highlighted some of the cultural conflicts between Western-scientific frames of health and cuisine, with centuries-old traditions:

The county does not categorize restaurants by their cuisine. But, anecdotally, officials have long believed that Chinese restaurants elude A grades at a rate greater than any other type of restaurant. Consider this: 80% of the county's eateries have an A. So why is it so hard to find an authentic Chinese restaurant with anything other than a B or C?

Chinese restaurateurs argue that their kitchens simply use too many ingredients and too many cooking techniques to comply with the all the rules of health inspectors like Chiu.

They say inspectors are overly strict and that a perfect score is tantamount to destroying the flavor of their food. If a roast duck were kept at the temperature the county wants it at all times, for example, chefs say you'd be left with duck jerky, not the succulent flesh and crispy skin diners expect.

And if diners were getting sick, restaurant owners say, they wouldn't be coming to eat in such large numbers.

"We've been cooking like this for 5,000 years," said Harvey Ng, owner of Mission 261 in San Gabriel. "Why do we have a problem now?"

As for me? An old anthropological adage goes, "If it hasn't killed off an entire culture, it's good enough to eat."

Provecho.

No More Delaying....

2005-09-28T14:06:00.000-07:00

Finally, finally, some good news for the week - and for the country:

WASHINGTON, Sept. 28 - Representative Tom DeLay of Texas, the powerful House Republican majority leader, was accused by a Texas grand jury today of criminal conspiracy in a campaign fund-raising scheme.

Mr. DeLay was indicted on one count charging that he violated state election laws in September 2002. Two political associates, John D. Colyandro and James W. Ellis, were indicted with him.

Something Out of Place

2005-09-21T12:28:00.000-07:00

Halfway through a workweek, halfway through a mandated survey project, and I've only been able to collect enough material for one good rant (not on the survey - too much material for that - but I'd like to keep my job).

Monday night I saw a special screening of Capote starring Philip Seymour Hoffman and penned by actor-turned-first-time-screenwrighter Dan Futterman. The buzz about this movie from Telluride and Toronto was positive, and Hoffman's portrayal of TC is impressive. There is already a murmur going around some boards that Hoffman might get an Oscar nomination for this part. I liked it, so if you enjoy this blog, make the effort to catch it when it comes to your town.

My gripe, however, isn't with the cast - it's with the crew. One memorable scene has a headshot of Capote talking on the phone to New York from Kansas circa 1960. Nothing else is going on, except for a few cuts to the office in New York at the other end, so anything out of the ordinary stands out. I'll say - the phone he was talking on had an RJ11 phone jack sticking out of the end! All the other phone scenes remained true to the old hard-wired connections, but props failed on that one. A brief review of phone history in the US shows that RJ11 phone jacks only became widely introduced after 1977 to facilitate connections with *new* home consumer products like answering machines and faxes.

Leave it to an anthropologist to point out the obvious. (The AA's basic guide to ethnography: shut up, sit down, and observe before opening your mouth.)

Busy, Busy, Busy

2005-09-14T17:41:00.000-07:00

Your intrepid AA apologizes for the many of you who have visited this site only to see last month's measly offerings. With the busy testing season over at Happy Valley College (sic), I'm now well into the early-term survey season, complete with a consequential validity study of a language test which, probably, will need to be re-evaluated next term with additional validation research (i.e., criterion validation, cut score validation, reliability studies, and disproportionate impact surveys - if these terms inspire fear, you should be afraid - very, very afraid).

As you might imagine, with this going on, and other stuff away from the office, my posting has been on hiatus.

Nonetheless, come this weekend I'll be venturing out to two events I'm looking forward to. This Saturday evening at the Mountain Bar in Chinatown, Jim Ruland will be hosting another evening of literary readings with the next gathering of Vermin on the Mount, and Monday I'll be off to a special screening of Capote with Philip Seymour Hoffman, which recently created some buzz at the Toronto Film Festival.

And for the good stuff? The best line of this past week:

Student: How do I add a class? (Third time asking the same question.)

Supervisor: Go to the classroom and request an add slip. (Hitting his head on the counter while simultaneously answering.)

Student: Before class?

Supervisor: That's generally a good idea.

Student: But what do I say?

Supervisor: Try, "Hello."

Devil in the Cinematic Details

2005-08-04T19:28:00.000-07:00

While pundits and business reporters debate the latent causes for declining box office receipts, my own particular gripe with current releases has been over continuity and plain-old details. Nothing shouts "low-budget" or amateur as much as the jumbo jet flying over a shootout in the Old West. It just doesn't belong there, and professional movie makers should know better.

So I was a bit surprised to have that same "gotcha" moment last weekend when I went to see the latest David Roos film Happy Endings, which recieved high marks during the recent LA Film Festival. Two key scenes take place in Phoenix, yet for those who have visited the lower half of the Grand Canyon State, the terrain is unrecognizeable. Phoenix is flat - but in the movie verdant suburban hillsides abound with homes that look more like 1970's era construction in the San Fernando Valley than Southwest bungalows. A further hint that the crew wasn't on top of things was in the choice of license plates. If you see the movie (which I recommend), take a look at the cars in "Phoenix" - they all have California license plates!

I had a similar experience with Funny Ha-Ha, which was being screened in the Los Angeles area a couple months ago. One scene really got to me - a college professor in Boston hires the lead character as a research assistant. On the back of his office door was his academic cap and gown! (I've never seen that in all my years of academia, apart from graduation day - even then, most full professors just rent the stuff for the day.) And, to rub salt in the reality wound, on his desk was a rotary telephone! Since phones are university property, virtually all campuses of higher education chucked those out shortly after R11 phone jacks became standard. What was the director thinking?!

So, for the true cinemaphiles out there, it's not just plot, character development, and dialog that make you itch in your seat.

In Need of Intelligent (Re)Design

2005-08-03T19:18:00.000-07:00

"I think it's an interesting part of knowledge [to have] a theory of evolution and a theory of creationism. People should be exposed to different points of view," Bush said during one 1999 appearance, according to a news account at the time. "I personally believe God created the Earth," he said.

Out of the POTUS mouth comes another bit of Presidential wisdom. The LA Times ran articles today and yesterday on W's assertion that the latest incarnation of creation science - intelligent design - should be taught alongside universally-accepted norms of biological science.

Frankly, most scientists are a bit apoplectic at confronting psuedoscientific conjectures wrapped in the shroud of "divinely-directed covering statements," as in the case of intelligent design. For a more in-depth look, a wonderful piece was published not long ago in the New Yorker by H. Allen Orr. Please take a look.

Tales from Corporate Ethnography

2005-07-26T19:13:00.000-07:00

If you haven't already seen it, please cruise over to Grant McCracken's blog on consumption and ethnographic research. A few days ago he posted some first-person experiences in the corporate ethnography trenches for The Coca-Cola Company and McDonald's. It's hilarious, and a must-read for the applied ethnography crowd (hint: it involves a researcher interviewing people at the drive-through window).

Commercial ethnography is sometimes the method of last resort. All other methods, quantitative and qualitative, have been tried and all have failed.

That's why, a couple of years ago, I got a call from The Coca-Cola Company (TCCC). A great torrent of Coke flows through McDonald's every day. So TCCC was particularly concerned by a new finding: that consumers order a smaller size of Coke when passing through the drive-through than when ordering indoors at the counter. Multiply this difference (even if it’s just 3 ounces) by millions of drinks per day over thousands of outlets, and you get the idea.

Click here to read the full article.

A Question of Skin Color

2005-07-26T10:49:00.000-07:00

An old committee member of mine once told me, "If you want to read good anthropological topics, just open the newspaper." Today the LA Times is running a Column One article on skin whitening products marketed to the local Asian American community in So Cal.

Whitening products have been a mainstay in Asia for decades, but cosmetics industry officials said they have emerged as a hot seller in the United States only in the last four years. Whitening products now rack up $10 million in sales a year, according to the market research firm Euromonitor.

But their popularity has sparked a debate in the Asian American community about the politics of whitening. Qui and others say the quest for white skin is an Asian tradition. But others — younger, American-born Asians — question whether the obsession with an ivory complexion has more to do with blending into white American culture, or even a subtle prejudice against those with darker skin.

The market research firm says cosmetics companies have taken note of the sensitivity, saying their Asian skin products in America are intended not for "whitening" but for "brightening."

"It's not a politically correct term because it seems to imply that looking Caucasian via a white complexion is the desired beauty goal," said Virginia Lee, a Euromonitor analyst.

But it's not just a generational difference in attitude. Skin color and racial classifications have been at the core of anthropological research for well over a century, teasing out cultural constructions of behavior and attitudes that rely on phenotypic markers to "explain" their underlying causes. Take the following exchange between a husban and wife as one such example:

It's OK for American women to be darker, said her husband Lei Sun, a 36-year-old sushi chef. "It's part of the sports thing."

But Lei Sun prefers lighter-skinned Asian women, saying that they embody the traditional ideal known as si si wen wen. He looked to his wife to explain the concept.

"That means when a lady stands there with white skin and is very polite, and when she laughs, she doesn't make a big noise," Qiu said.

Critical Mass

2005-07-25T19:25:00.000-07:00

It's Testing Time.

The Happy Staff at Assessment Central is quickly approaching critical mass. Today, and several days last week, we hit our theoretical maximum for accomodating test takers (close to 400 testing units/day), so The Angry Anthropologists is quickly becoming the Burned-Out Bureaucrat. Keep tuned in, however, and I'll post a few more of the comical responses and questions we continuously get during the peak July/August season.

Did make a few template changes, and added another section from folks I have enjoyed reading.

Lastly, remember that if you loose your sense of humor in lines of sweating, angst-ridden undergraduates waiting to be tested, advised, and counseled, you'll look like the following:

And before you get your classes....

L.A. Street Life

2005-07-21T19:07:00.000-07:00

It's Alternative News Thursday, and the latest LA Weekly includes an interesting article on the downtown weekend shopping hub in the Fashion District. But, if you want an even more culturally dislocating marketing experience, try walking around greater Koreatown on an early Saturday evening when the Latino sidewalk hawkers lay out their wares for sale.

Talk about street life: The 20 blocks that are devoted to low-end but extremely high-volume retail sales are mobbed on weekends. This is where the immigrant underclass shops, arriving on foot and by bus, buying everything from designer seconds to overstock to bootleg DVDs and lovebirds, meantime eating sliced mangoes, watermelon and cucumbers with lime, salt and chile, while the tantalizing smell of sausages cooking with onions and peppers on sidewalk grills wafts over the crowd. The scene along the series of alleys and covered passageways and sidewalks — where shops spill out onto the street and vendors from all nations hawk their wares, some even climbing ladders in order to maximize visibility over the elbow-to-elbow hubbub — is vivid, tactile, like an outdoor souk or bazaar.

This isn’t the nice and neat American Way of Shopping with which Angelenos are all so familiar, but it sure is more interesting. There are no chain stores here. Ninety-five percent of retailers are mom-and-pop enterprises employing five or fewer people. Even St. Joseph’s Church has exploited its Fashion District location, having built out the circumference of its property with retail stores and paying its monthly dues into the local business improvement district. But while retail sales are estimated at an impressive $1 billion annually, it’s the $7 billion wholesale industry that booms.

“The Intersection,” as it’s called, at Ninth and Los Angeles, has more square footage devoted to the fashion industry than anywhere in the universe — with the huge California Market Center, the largest apparel wholesale mart in the U.S., on one corner, and the Cooper Building, the Streamline Modern Gerry Building, and the New Mart on the other corners. Southern California has lost 30,000 manufacturing jobs, mostly to China, but they’ve been replaced with higher-skilled, better-paying jobs in the wholesale business, and L.A. now has more apparel jobs than New York City....

Consumption Wars: Starbucks - Here, and Across the Pond

2005-07-20T19:35:00.000-07:00

A hectic day at the office, so forgive the evening posting. Thanks to Arts and Letters Daily, I noticed two articles which discuss varying attitudes towards corporate standardization of coffee products (id est, Starbucks), more or less.

On this side of the Big Pond is the latest work by Rebecca Solnit on the lost art of getting lost:

We live in an increasingly standardized environment, bouncing from one branch of Starbucks to another, and it's almost impossible to get truly lost thanks to technology. Solnit believes that our fear of not knowing where we are is partly due to our inability to read the language of nature. "There's an art to attending to the weather, to the route you take, to the landmarks along the way. . . . And there's another art of being at home in the unknown, so that being in its midst isn't cause for panic or suffering."

And some thousands of miles away, a London-based writer pubically admits to a consumption addiction:

This isn't a particularly easy thing for me to admit, but then dark confessions so rarely are. I have a certain predilection, shall we say, for Starbucks. Granted, I'm not overly proud of being a regular, sometimes daily, visitor to the coffee house's answer to McDonald's, but I must be a fairly loyal one. My pocket calculator tells me that, rather obscenely, I spend somewhere in the region of £440 a year in branches across London.

Assessment Train at Happy Times CC

2005-07-19T18:31:00.000-07:00

While most Angelinos, especially those living inland, are complaining about the unbearable heat this week, the TAA and staff/friends are dealing with another onslaught of record-breaking proportions: registration and assessment testing of new students at Happy Times CC in the San Gabriel Valley.

An annual event for staff and students, this year seems to be particularly busy. If the numbers keep up, we'll have almost 14,000 standardized tests administered in our office through August. So, while I had hoped to keep up with the blogging, I may need to take several days off for both physical and mental retooling. You would too, given some of the questions and statements typically heard this time of the year, such as:

I'm here for my replacement test.
You mean your placement test?
Yeah, that's what I said - my replacement test.

Hello, Testing Services.
Yes, hello. I need to ask you a question about financial aid.
This isn't the Financial Aid Office, why don't you call them directly? We can't help you with any financial aid questions. They're in another building.
They're not picking up their phone - but you guys are.

What tests do you need to take today?
Umm, uhmm.... (silence)
Hello? [Hand wave by testing staff member.]
[Bewildered look by student at front desk.]
What tests to you need to take? Why are you in this office?
I don't know.....

Do you have any form of photo identification with you?
Nah, I've only got my driver's license.
That is a form of ID!
No it's not - it's a license.

Multiply this by a factor of thousands, and you'll feel just like everyone else in this office - at least until the semester begins.

American Junk 'N Stuff

2005-07-19T18:13:00.000-07:00

From the popular-culture-meets-material-culture files, Tom Vanderbilt writes about the burgeoning trade in self-storage units in the U.S. in today's edition of Slate.

What this translates into, apart from one hell of a lot of stationary bikes kept behind padlocked metal doors, is an industry that now exceeds the revenues of Hollywood (and doesn't have to deal with Tom Cruise). One in 11 American households, according to a recent survey, owns self-storage space—an increase of some 75 percent from 1995. Most operators of self-storage facilities report 90 percent occupancy, with average stints among its renters of 15 months. Last year alone saw a 24 percent spike in the number of self-storage units on the market.

How did self storage, or "mini storage," as it's sometimes called, become such an enormous enterprise? And what on earth are people keeping in there?

In a word? Junk! I've dealt with the accumulation of multiple lifetimes when my father remarried several years ago. Dad and my stepmom had sizeable collections of furniture, art, and things that annoyingly clutter any stable shelf in a household. Merging two households into one would seem to most folk a problem requiring cleaning, selling, and organizing what's left. They opted for the new American course of "putting in storage," including two storage units and a garage that can no longer accomodate a car. And every time I'm summoned to help the elders resort and relabel (which they do often, but never get rid of it), I feel a bit like a reluctant archaeologist (not my field of expertise, nor my liking).

Enough of my rants. It's been a bad week.

American Gothic Returns to the Corn Fields

2005-07-11T19:01:00.000-07:00

The little house behind the big picture.

Big news from the wilds of Iowa. The famous American Gothic painting by Grant Wood will travel to Cedar Rapids from the Art Institute of Chicago this fall, as reported in the Chicago Tribune last weekend.

Their faces won't betray it, but the farm couple in "American Gothic" are getting a rare chance to visit their hometown this fall, a leave granted in light of their 75 years together.

Almost since its completion, the painting has been owned by the Art Institute of Chicago, which paid artist Grant Wood $300 for it in late 1930, after it won third place in a juried show there. The work was an immediate sensation and remains a signature holding of the museum. And its dour duo, the man with his hay fork, the woman in her prim apron, are among pop culture's more recognized and mercilessly parodied images.

The institute rarely lends the piece, because it is fragile and its absence would disappoint so many visitors.

"It's one of our `destination' pictures," said Judith Barter, curator of American art.

But in early September, its destination will be Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Wood's boyhood home will get to see "American Gothic" from Sept. 10 to Dec. 4, when the painting will star in a major exhibition of his works in the Cedar Rapids Museum of Art.

You'll find the American Gothic House down near the Missouri border in Eldon, Iowa - and I've been there (on a summer trip in which copious amounts of fireworks were purchased in the Show Me The Money state). A picture and brief description can be found here. It's surprisingly off the beaten path, with about a half dozen signs in Eldon sending you on detour-laden trip to a dusty road, and a sharp corner with a rusting metal barn, across from which is the house - much smaller than the painting makes it look - and a historical marker. So, the TAA gets double braggings rights, having seen the painting in person, and the house.

Consequences of Wealth in China

2005-07-11T13:36:00.000-07:00

A good article from the front page of today's LA Times discusses the unintended consequences of China's rapidly-expanding economy: psychological pressure on young professionals to succeed and and consume more goods.

Experts say the very forces that provide unprecedented opportunity for young people in the new China are also delivering unprecedented stress, particularly though not exclusively in urban areas. Common among young Chinese is a feeling that they're living in a once-in-a-few-centuries era when dynasties topple and individual fortunes are made — and that they're missing out.

"The whole society is impatient, especially the young people," said Zhou Xiaozheng, a professor of sociology at People's University in Beijing. "President Hu Jintao said recently we Chinese must be modest and cautious and avoid arrogance. Of course, that means we're none of these things."

Though pressure to do well is evident almost everywhere in the world, experts say it's greater in China in part because people here think the nation has arrived late to the global economic party and needs to make up for lost time. Catching up economically with rich neighbors such as Japan and South Korea is seen as a way of "regaining" China's rightful place on the international stage.

Insecurity among young professionals, often manifest in frenzied job-hopping, is fueled by media coverage of the super-rich, such as online-game mogul Chen Tianqiao, worth an estimated $1.05 billion at age 31. Or Huang Guangyu, founder of electronic retailer GoMe, estimated to be worth $1.3 billion at 35. Or thirtysomething Ding Lei of Internet portal NetEase, at $668 million.

By most measures, Wang Sujun is doing well. The 32-year-old has a master's degree from Peking University, China's Harvard, and a prestigious job with Beijing Mobile, a major telecommunications company. He says he's happily married and in March welcomed the arrival of a healthy daughter, Zizuo. In a country where the average annual salary is less than $1,000, he's making more than 11 times that much.

But Wang doesn't feel successful.

"Life is so stressful, I feel enormous pressure on my shoulders all the time," he said, his words tumbling out in a series of rapid bursts. "If I could only do better somehow, I might become rich and happy."

When he meets with his three best friends, they talk about what they need to be more successful. Wang wants more money, and he worries that his peers have better jobs, nicer apartments, fancier cars.

Friday Afternoon Burnout

2005-07-08T16:39:00.001-07:00

Another workweek ends on a slightly dour note - the test-takers at the Little College were thoroughly enervating this week, and a time series analysis of their placement scores would probably show a linear (negative) relationship between time of the month and their respective scores, based on previous experience.

But on a more happy note, LA Alternative Press has published its Best Of Alternative LA List for perusal and debate. Two of the better alternatives are close to my heart:

The Best Alternative to TalkingSit Down and Shut Up
Los Angeles has long been plagued by a relentless virus called verbal diarrhea. The symptoms are as follows: aimless babble, continuous celebrity chatter, smooth speech and pet-induced gibberish. The virulent infection has spread so fast, few Angelenos realize they are constantly showered with hogwash and spewing baloney. There is one temporary treatment available for this syntactic sickness, but it requires the sick to check into “silence clinics.” They spend a day, week, month or longer on a silent retreat, where they eat, meditate, do yoga and other spiritual practices of choice without uttering a word. Upon discharge, people are known to have sharpened senses and clearer minds. It’s up to you to bring an end to this epidemic by treating yourself to a silent retreat. Otherwise, verbal diarrhea will spread throughout the rest of California, the United States and after that nothing will stop it. (Jasmin Persch)

And this one hit a bit too close to home (remember the Vermin on the Mount reading in Chinatown next weekend!):

Best Alternative to Westside Bars for 30+-Year-Old Heavy Drinkers
The “Real” Chinatown If you’re lucky enough to get past the age of 30, and you drink, you suddenly begin searching for more convenient, safer places to do so. If you live on the Eastside, sometimes that trek out to Hollywood or Santa Monica can get dicey, especially if you put a load on. Chinatown then (the real Chinatown, not the one bought and paid for out in the San Gabriel Valley), is a great location because of six major factors:

1) Three bars within feet-and stumbling-distance of each other.
2) Close, and usually free parking in lots.
3) No cops.
4) Quick freeway access: the Pasadena/Harbor/Golden State are a block away.
5) No trouble from any “elements.”
6 ) All bartenders, doormen, and owners are mellow with zero-attitude.

In that main plaza area, between Broadway and Hill, you have Grand Star Jazz Club, Mountain Bar, and Hop Louie. Park in back off of College St.—the only trouble you’ll have is the same homeless dude who’s been in that lot forever asking you for a cigarette. Yeah, sometimes you think about giving him a good smack, but he’s harmless. (Jim Marquez)

Bombing Updates

2005-07-07T13:50:00.000-07:00

For those who wish to keep up on the details about the London bombings, the Guardian has a real-time blog from the UK.

London Bombings Fallout on the Market

2005-07-07T13:41:00.000-07:00

Like most of you, I'm still trying to keep up on the aftermath of today's London bombings while juggling a heavy load at the office, but I couldn't help noticing that on Slate Daniel Gross comments on what financial markets might make of this trauma (given that about >90% of economics is psychology - especially on the trading floor).

Talking about a market session in the middle of it is like writing the story about a baseball game in the fourth inning. And the scale of the 7/7 attacks is much smaller and in many ways fundamentally different than the 9/11 attacks; trading never stopped on the London exchanges and New York trading opened on schedule. Still, it's worth noting that the early market reaction to the London bombings shows some striking similarities to the reaction to Sept. 11.

Markets have a lot of muscle memory. And when traders and investors react to crises that crop up, they instinctively and perhaps subconsciously fall back on knowledge and experience. Just as generals always fight the last war, traders grappling with a coordinated terrorist attack on a global financial center to a degree are trading the last event. Today, in the markets in London and New York, we're seeing the lessons of the post-9/11 investment fallout being applied in real time.

Win Friends on a Jury

2005-07-06T18:54:00.000-07:00

The Times auto section contains the hilarious details of traffic collision case settled out of court in 2003 for a reported $6 million involving a young Paris Hilton-wannabe and an off-duty police officer in Palmdale. Guess who was talking on the cell phone? Obstensibly, the article was about the doubling of cell phone use by drivers in the US since 2000, and limits on auto liability insurance stemming from distracted motorists. But, the details are too good to pass up:

Although the teenager denied using a cellphone at the time of the accident, her phone records showed that she was on a call at the approximate time of the crash."

She said she hung up before the accident," said Hugh J. Grant, the attorney for the young defendant. "The jury didn't believe her."

Indeed, the jury delivered a stunning award: $7.3 million for the officer.

Who was going to pay for this and why did the jury give so much? Many cases involving death or permanent disability result in less compensation to victims. Even many drunk driving cases result in lower awards. But this was no ordinary case.

"It was an angry jury," recalled R. Rex Parris, the Lancaster attorney who represented the police officer.

"It was a very unusual case with some very unusual injury allegations," Grant said.

What inflamed the jury? Was it the cellphone? The fact that the injured defendant was a police officer? The behavior of the defendant?

The teenager "showed up with a $1,000 Louis Vuitton purse and $1,000 spike heels," Parris said. "I just wanted the jury to see the purse again. She didn't want to show it. I asked her if she had the cellphone with her. When she pulled it out, the power was on. She had come to court with a cellphone turned on. The jury was kind of incensed by the whole thing."

Upcoming LA-Lit Events

2005-07-05T18:49:00.000-07:00

I've been out of action for couple months (more on that sometime in the future), but to return to true angry form, I'll be dropping in at a couple LA Lit events in the coming weeks.

First, this Saturday Skylight Books will host a panel of countervailing feminist narratives:

Time: Saturday, July 9, 2005 5:00 PM

MEGHAN DAUM, JANET FITCH, KATE GALE, NINA REVOYR, SUSAN STRAIGHT and LESLIE SCHWARTZ (moderator)

Beyond Chick-Lit: Busting the stereotypes and publishing limitations of women who write.This remarkable panel of women novelists will discuss the ways in which their literature is challenged by the act of publishing -- why book marketers feel they have to put women writers into categories like Chick-Lit (for which there is no male equivalent), race, sexual orientation, etc because they believe that unless they do, they cannot sell literature by women. They will also discuss how this affects their writing lives and what can be done to change stereotypes about women writers.

And remember, if you hang around Los Feliz Village afterwards you can catch lounge singing icons Marty and Elayne at the Dresden just one block away.

Second, the estimable Mr. Ruland has announced the next Vermin on the Mount reading at the Mountain Bar in Chinatown on Saturday, July 16. Presenters will be Jacob Forman, Lizz Huerta, Wendy Molyneux and Daniel Olivas. Be there.

Liars, Cheats, Spies, and Birders

2005-07-05T18:03:00.000-07:00

If you don't have access to the Los Angeles Times, check out today's front page Column One article on birders falling prey to post-9-11 paranoia. It's quite a shock over morning coffee:

Over the last four decades, bird-watchers have flocked to the four manufactured islands of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel, where at least 350 different species have been spotted. "It's probably the single most popular birding site in the mid-Atlantic," said Brinkley, who edits the journal North American Birds.

But nowadays it isn't as easy or simple for birders like Brinkley to do what they love. At popular birding sites across the country, they are facing stricter regulations — in some cases being required to hire a police escort — as authorities beef up national security.

Since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Americans have been subject to increased government restrictions and scrutiny at airports and elsewhere. That bird-watchers have become a target is somewhat surprising, since all they do is "walk quietly through the woods," as Brinkley put it.

But those woods are often around military bases, wastewater management plants and dams — places where government authorities fear that terrorists, disguised as birders, could lurk or strike.

And the equipment they carry — binoculars, telescopes and cameras — can make birders look suspicious at first glance. That has been the case at Wisconsin's Jones Island, a peninsula in Milwaukee Harbor about 100 yards from a Coast Guard station and a Navy Reserve station.

Since they have "sophisticated gear and [are] looking at things not normally photographed by the common citizen in this area, they may be stopped and asked a few questions," said Lt. Jamie Rickerson, chief of port operations at the Coast Guard station's Marine Safety office.

Now, I personally know some birders, and they are about as likely a group of terrorists as one might find at a Popular Mechanics reading group. They are also, I might add, much smarter than the minor-league Platos who came up with this policy.

Fuzzy Math and the WSJ

2005-04-29T12:32:00.000-07:00

If you are in the mood for a data-reality-check, read Jonathan Chait's commentary in today's LA Times on the slick relativism found in the pages of the Wall Street Journal.

A Wall Street Journal editorial this week cites a recent IRS study detailing which income groups pay what level of taxes. The editors note with satisfaction that the highest-earning 0.1% of the population paid 5.06% of the federal tax burden in 1979, and was paying 9.52% as of a couple of years ago.

To the Journal editors, this proves that "the overall tax burden grew more progressive from 1979 to 1999." The editorial goes on to note that any move to raise taxes on the rich would be deeply unfair because those poor folks "already bear an outsized share of the American tax burden."

It is certainly true that the richest 0.1% are paying a higher share of the national tax burden. Is that because they're getting socked by the tax code? No, it's because the very rich are earning a far bigger proportion of the national income. In 1979, the highest-earning 0.1% took home about 3% of the national income, and paid about 5% of the taxes. In 1999, they earned about 10% of the national income and paid about 11% of the taxes.

In fact, the tax rate borne by the very rich has plummeted. In 1979, the top 0.1% paid, on average, 32% of their income in taxes. Today, they pay less than 23%. So what's happening is that the top 0.1% are paying a higher share of the tax burden because their share of the national income is rising faster than their tax rates are falling. The Journal editorial board sees this state of affairs as class warfare against the rich.

And as long as you're visiting, check out Bill Maher's piece on GOP rage. Realizing you have a problem is the first step to recovery.

Burger Town

2005-04-29T12:22:00.000-07:00

Everyone knows about certain cities and their favorite fast foods: Philly and hoagies, Chicago and hot dogs, etc. But long-term readers of TAA will remember that most of the burger chains in the U.S. began in SoCal (White Castle sliders don't quite classify as burgers in my book). Local blog LAist returns to the fatty favorite of Los Angeles and asks for frenzied feedback.

But a burger is a state of mind, a craving, a bite of Americana right up there with apple pie. And burgers can get dressed up for all sorts of occasions: hoe-down style with BBQ sauce and some onion straws, dressed to impress with designer cheese and pricey wedges of smoky bacon, or down and dirty slathered in chili. It's easy to become a burger elitist or connoisseur; we become devotees to one neighborhood diner, joint or stand, or, we treat the burger like a gourmet meal, and sample the beef-and-buns at high-end restaurants. And while we know it's pretty tough to beat an old fashioned home-grilled backyard BBQ burger, there are some choices in LA. We'll tell you what we like, and then it's your turn.

Top pick? Obviously, In-N-Out. Who wouldn't like a place with a completely hidden menu savored by locals?

Live Vermin

2005-04-29T12:11:00.000-07:00

What do you call a group of vermin reading literature? Jim Ruland, L.A.'s legendary host for the reading series Vermin on the Mount, is now up-and-running online. If memory serves me, Jim said the next readings should take place in July.

Our fangs are fullsome, yes, but not as venomous as they once were. Although we aren't above the occassional lazy swipe at an easy target, we don't intend to subject you to vituperative outbursts about stuff we don't like, or foam-flecked fulminations about things we love. You will, however, find Vermin-related updates, amusements, and other earnest distractions.

LA Times Festival of Books 2005

2005-04-25T18:58:00.000-07:00

Some weeks, the blogging commentary just comes forth without effort, and other weeks are marked by barren landscapes of thought and activity. The past two weeks have been filled with much activity, and little to show for it on this site. Nonetheless, my period of (in)activity was topped this past weekend by the 10th Annual LA Times Festival of Books, now one of the largest bibliophile festivals on the west coast, and associated happenings.

A few comments and observations are in order:

I've organized and chaired more than a few panels at professional meetings in the U.S. and abroad, so I have some experience about what makes for a good moderator, and a poor one. Next year, if you are selected to chair a panel, please keep in mind the following:

A) Time is important - make sure a panelist doesn't hog the microphone, it's a panel, not a presentation.

B) A Q&A Session is one structured around brief questions from the audience, and succinct answers from panelists. It is not, and should not, be a "Speech and Answer" session, giving airhead windbags a moment of theatrical elevation at the expense of everyone else in the room.

C) Control the discussion by taking the middle road: Most of those in the audience are not industry "insiders," so they won't get obscure jokes or references, nor are they complete dimwits - this is a book festival, not a NASCAR race. Have panelists briefly explain concepts or historic events that might not be familiar to everyone in the audience, and keep the discussion away from esoterica.

Last comment: Getting tickets for this is a pain! While free at participating TicketMaster locations in SoCal, repeat festival goers know that in order to get into the larger events (i.e., cosmological writers and/or celebrities) you have to camp out in line far in advance of the noon release. This year I arrived at the Pasadena spot at 11:45 am and finally picked up my tix at 2:15 pm! The experience would not have been as traumatic if senior citizen "Ruth" and her friends standing immediately behind me had not complained incessantly about the most mundane minutia for the entire 2 1/2 hours. Finding parking in Westwood on a Saturday and Sunday was a breeze compared to that experience.

Now for the observations. First, it was thankfully cooler this year, and we were spared from a chance of Saturday afternoon rain on the UCLA campus. Saturday morning I went to the "Writers in Exile" panel, primarily to see Chris Abani, who has written a wonderful first novel Graceland, but the feel in the room and at the signing afterward was that many came to see Ved Mehta, a well-known writer and former staff writer at The New Yorker (and another victim of Tina Brown's tenure). The afternoon was capped with another great fiction panel, "First Fiction: Finding a Voice" featuring Lisa Glatt and Sarah Shun-lien Bynum (another Iowa grad). Lisa regaled us with a hilarious account of going out to dinner with a fellow student at Sarah Lawrence who was "obviously insance" but lacking any other friends Lisa continued to have dinner with her unbalanced fellow MFA student in the name of companionship, if not sanity. And when the moderator Mark Rozzo (first fiction editor at the LATRB) reminded everyone to turn off their cell phones, Lisa was the first to jump off her chair and do so (usually, this request is directed at member of the audience, not the panel).

Saturday night Jim Ruland hosted yet another memorable gathering of irreverent writers and poets at the Mountain Bar in Chinatown for Vermin on the Mount, an occasional reading series, this time co-sponsored by Swink Magazine. I think it was the best by far, with a respectable crowd. Julianne Flynn read from her work-in-progress novel Buzzkill, and let us see the face behind the legs on her lit blog. She has posted several pictures of the evening for those of you who might want to see "proof" that there is a thriving literature community in Los Angeles. And Mark Sarvas, who detailed happenings at the Festival of Books on a real-time basis at The Elegant Variation read from his novel under construction.

Sunday I popped in at a couple panels on Hollywood (last year I focused on Crime and Mystery writers, this year, the other sordid aspect of LA) and finished with "A Sense of Place: The Liturature of Cities" featuring Marc Cooper, who has just completed a work on Las Vegas. But, in a final gesture of bureaucratic irony, the moderator's gavel was given to Thomas Curwen, the LAT editor of the Outdoor Section, on a panel of writer and researchers who focus on cities and urban areas. Go figure.

Still, highly enjoyable and rewarding. Make the effort to go next year - just don't get stuck next to Ruth in line.

Paleolithic Porno

2005-04-15T09:54:00.000-07:00

From Arts and Letters Daily we came across this article on pornographic sculptures found recently in some German archaeological sites. The bottom line? Archaeologists - go get a life.

New pornographic figurines from the Stone Age have been discovered in Germany. But researchers can't agree on what the 7,000-year-old sculptures mean. Were our ancestors uninhibited sex fiends, or was reproduction strictly controlled to improve mobility? An increasing number of finds seem to indicate the Stone Age was an orgy of sexual imagination.

Revisiting the Tax Gap on Tax Day

2005-04-15T09:40:00.000-07:00

For you international readers, today is the deadline in the U.S. for filing individual income taxes with the federal government (and most state governments). Unlike many countries, the U.S. tax system is mired in a bog of multiple tax forms, write-offs, and regulations, requiring even individuals with little tax calculation to spend hours completing forms in accordance with annual changes in the tax code (for a not-so-fun trip through bureaucracy Americana, visit the Internal Revenue Service and download some forms). But, on top of this, we also have a pronounced shortfall in expected tax revenues - especially business taxes - at the same time that commerce spokespersons becry the lack of a "favorable" business climate in one of the world's most open market economies. This week's snapshot from the Economic Policy Institute contains the sordid details.

The latest research from the Internal Revenue Service puts the amount of taxes owed but not paid "voluntarily and timely"--also known as the "tax gap"--at $353 billion, or about 15% of total taxes owed. The U.S. tax system depends in great part on voluntary compliance. The extent of such compliance in the United States compares well with other countries, but this asset is in danger of being squandered by inadequate tax enforcement. Failure to enforce the law encourages greater evasion, and increased evasion puts a greater burden on enforcement, contributing to a vicious circle that increases the tax gap.

How to Write Real Good

2005-04-15T09:24:00.000-07:00

Today's Chronicle has an amusing article on the shortcomings of grammar-checking in Microsoft products. Those enamored with technological crutches and mental crib-sheets should take a look, and then go back to their dictionaries. On the other hand, the grammar police are slowly losing the battle - just listen for the lack of adverbs next time you tune into the radio or watch the boob tube.

If you've ever used Microsoft Word, chances are you've seen that jagged green line appear beneath something you've written -- scolding you for drafting a fragmented sentence, maybe, or for slipping into the passive voice. That's Microsoft's grammar-checking technology at work.

But how much good does the grammar checker actually do? Precious little, according to Sandeep Krishnamurthy, an associate professor of marketing and e-commerce at the University of Washington. After experimenting with the tool, Mr. Krishnamurthy concluded that it cannot identify many basic grammatical faux pas -- like errors in capitalization, punctuation, and verb tense.

Another Literary Passing

2005-04-06T14:50:00.000-07:00

I'm still reeling from the passing of Saul Bellow (Mark Sarvas has a good roundup of coverage at The Elegant Variation), and then read this hour that Frank Conroy, former head of the UI Writer's Workshop, has died in Iowa City. From my old newspaper:

Head of Writers' Workshop dies

By Kristen Schorsch

Frank Conroy, head of the acclaimed University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop since 1987, died at his home today. He was 69.

In August 2004, Conroy, of Iowa City, announced he would end his 18-year tenure one year later, citing health problems and a desire to pursue other goals, such as teaching and writing. He had been battling colon cancer and last summer said he was symptom free.

Conroy is the author of “Stop-Time,” a 1967 memoir nominated for the National Book Award, “Body & Soul,” “Dogs Bark, but the Caravan Rolls On,” and his latest, "Time and Tide." His essays and shorts stories have appeared in several magazines, such as The New Yorker, Esquire and GQ.

In a press release from the University of Iowa, author Chris Offutt, a visiting faculty member who was Conroy's student in the workshop, said "Frank had a great influence on every student fortunate enough to study with him, but his biggest impact was on American literature. He not only took his job seriously, but he provided unflagging support for young writers. Many of his former students have gone on to distinguished careers."

Conroy was also an accomplished jazz pianist won a Grammy Award in 1986 and was named Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters by the French Government.

UI’s Writers’ Workshop was founded in 1936 and is the first of its kind in the nation. It has produced writers such as Pulitzer Prize winner Michael Cunningham, Jane Smiley and John Irving. Marilynne Robinson, a workshop faculty member, won a Pulitzer Tuesday.

More Fossil Record Follies

2005-04-06T14:37:00.000-07:00

Today's NYT reports on a recent Homo erectus find which might show evidence of social behavior, specifically, the care of indigent elderly. Other finds show more conclusive evidence in later hominid remains - this is much earlier than previously thought. The phys anthro crowd has always been guilty of reading too much into the fossil record (partly due to the dearth of evidence in their specialty, and partly due to the gung-ho personality of many rock hounds), but this article raised the following observation: Since hominids, by their physical nature, seem to have needed social protection and survival skills (i.e., reduced canines, lack of insulating body hair, reduced physical strength in comparison to other primates, early evidence of tool use and fire which require instruction from generation to generation, etc), why should we be surprised if an early H. erectus seemed to have lived for at least two years on old age sans dentition? At least read the article - then you decide.

The well-preserved skull belonged to a male Homo erectus about 40 years old. All his teeth, except the left canine, were missing. The empty tooth sockets had been filled in by a regrowth of bone, the scientists said, indicating that the man had been toothless for at least two years before he died at what was then an old age. (The discoverers call him the "old man.")

In a report in today's issue of the journal Nature, the discovery team said the 1.77-million-year-old skull "raises questions about alternative subsistence strategies in early Homo."

Specifically, how could the man have survived that long, unable to chew the food of a mainly meat-eating society?

In interviews and the current issue of National Geographic, the paleoanthropologists said caring companions might have helped the toothless man in finding soft plant food and hammering raw meat with stone tools so he could "gum" his dinner. If so, they said, this was evidence of a kind of compassion that had been absent in the ancestral fossil record before the Neanderthals 60,000 years ago.

Update

2005-04-04T09:31:00.000-07:00

My apologies to the global readers of The Angry Anthropologist. Last week I was busy with some deadlines (with more to come), hence, posts were few and curt. I'll try better this week to keep up-to-date with news topics worthy of an anthropological perspective and commentary. And, as always, thanks for visiting.

-Formosus in Pasadena, CA.

Nursing Discovers Culture

2005-04-04T09:15:00.000-07:00

Today's LA Times reports on a dissertation research project focusing on modesty among Jewish women, and its impact on seeking medical care:

Caryn Andrews had been in search of a dissertation topic when a member of her synagogue happened to pose a question: "Do you think religious Jews would be less likely to go for a mammogram?"

Intrigued, Andrews, a doctoral candidate at the University of Maryland School of Nursing, pondered the question with her rabbi, Susan Grossman, at Beth Shalom in Columbia, Md. "She suggested that I couldn't look at religion; I had to look at modesty," Andrews says.

It was a crucial distinction in a faith in which healing oneself and others is a requirement, but one that can often be difficult because of some forms of modesty practiced in the Jewish community.

A dissertation topic was born.

The concept of modesty and its role in Jewish culture led Andrews, an oncology nurse practitioner at Northwest Hospital Center in Randallstown, Md., to research whether modesty among Jewish women might discourage them from receiving breast cancer screenings.

Andrews hopes that her findings and further studies will have an effect on the administration of healthcare in any community where rules of modesty may pose obstacles to mammography, other forms of preventive healthcare and treatment.

My reactions over morning coffee were twofold. One, congratulations on perceiving the role of culture in shaping medical decisions - it's been done for decades by others, especially in the field of medical anthropology (Caveat: Yours truly has been a blind reviewer for Medical Anthropology Quarterly). Two, reading along I had hoped that the study would involve more than a relatively small sample of interviews and creation of a psychometric scale (a methodological crutch in many medical-behavioral studies), but then, I was wrong:

In interviews with 40 women, Andrews also gleaned the many dimensions of the role played by modesty in their lives, from the clothing they wore to the books they read.

The result, Andrews says, was the development of a "modesty scale that provides evidence that modesty can be measured."

How to Trek Without Really Trying

2005-04-04T08:59:00.000-07:00

Want to experience the natural wonders of the Central American rain forest with an eye to ecological correctness? Don't want to give up all the amenities of civilization? You can do so at Francis Ford Coppola's eco-lodge in Belize, covered extensively in Sunday's NYT:

Because this moment was created by Mr. Coppola - director, producer, writer, winemaker and hotelier - it feels slightly unreal, but in the nicest possible way. In my experience, this sort of outing has been synonymous with slogging, sleeping on the ground and feeling like a contestant in a reality show. In order to see the Himalayas, for example, I once trekked for eight days in August with two guides and four ponies - chugging water that reeked of iodine and breakfasting on raw apples. And when I went to Camiguin, a volcanic island in the Philippines, the only time I wasn't slicked in grease and sweat was when I was paddling in a reef with sea snakes.

But here at Blancaneaux and at Mr. Coppola's other Central American properties - Turtle Inn, in the village of Placencia on the coast of Belize, and La Lancha, on Lake Petén Itzá in Guatemala - travelers who might have been backpackers in another era can enter an authentic but sensually gratifying version of the third world stage-managed by a master. The feeling at Blancaneaux Lodge and at La Lancha, which I also visited, is that of being at a private club for experienced travelers hip to the notion of exploring, preserving and celebrating the indigenous culture without sacrificing laundry service and a wine list.

With handmade textiles, furniture and folk art collected by Mr. Coppola and his wife, Eleanor, across Mexico, Guatemala and Belize, guest quarters are free of telephones and, of course, TV's or DVD players (though Internet access is available at the front desks). International cellphones don't work, and you'll have to stand in line to use the house telephone - not that anyone seems to mind. You're free to tune in to the scratching sounds of thatch-colored lizards or the ticking of woodpeckers or to the screams of howler monkeys staking out their territory in the dead of night.

But it's the charm factor that puts Mr. Coppola's resorts over the top. When I wake at sunrise, craving sustenance, I press the switch on an intercom by my bed; it's concealed by a conch shell that promptly lights up. Room service arrives 10 minutes later. (Later, Mr. Coppola tells me via e-mail that the device, which he calls the shellphone, "was an idea I had for years. I love its eccentricity.")

Part of the allure of visiting remote vacation destinations is the journey and sacrifice (albeit small) of the traveler: it is the "re-creation" of something that existed before, seen as unsullied, pure, untouched. Room service doesn't seem to me to be part of that wonder. It reminds me too much of a tale recounted by American mountaineers in the Himalayas. Apparently, you could tell the British climbers from the Americans before they emerged from their tents after a good night's sleep: the British instructed their Sherpa guides to bring them hot tea while still snuggled in their sleeping bags.

Off the Media Radar

2005-04-04T08:49:00.000-07:00

From the "off the English-language media radar" files, we learn that two of the largest Chinese-language dailies in the U.S. find something positive in the acrimonious debate over the late Terri Schiavo. Courtesy of the Pacific News Service:

Many mainstream media have described the controversy over the Terri Schiavo case as "grotesque," "awful" and "divisive." However, two of the largest Chinese American dailies in the United States -- Sing Tao Daily and the World Journal -- find a positive note in the controversy, mostly the singularly American response to an undoubtedly difficult issue.

World Journal editor-in-chief Yu Ru Chen writes that the resolution of the case and the public's response show that "the democratic process is deeply rooted in people's hearts." The World Journal recalls how the controversy wound its way through contending branches of government, noting that the Bush administration "used its majority advantage in Congress" to "single-handedly enact a law to move Schiavo's jurisdiction to a federal court" after a Florida court refused to order the replacement of her feeding tube.

Despite the outcry over states' rights that the move set off, "using this legislative method to give the right to the courts to decide" showed that the executive "still respects" the judiciary branch. "This is America's proudest political capital," says the World Journal.

The End of Dutch Relativism?

2005-03-29T08:27:00.000-08:00

Just how far can cultural relativism go? The Dutch have been famous for their tolerance and acceptance of diparate populations in the Netherlands, but after a series of infamous killings, fissures have emerged in Dutch popular opinion. The Pacific News Service has an article on one recent development that those interested in contemporary "culture wars" should put in the files.

AMSTERDAM, Netherlands--After a 19-year-old man of Moroccan descent was run down and killed in January by a Dutch woman driver trying to recover her stolen purse, mourners blamed Immigration Minister Rita Verdonk for the death.

Gathered at a makeshift memorial here earlier this winter, the mourners said Verdonk's tough immigration reforms have increased Dutch xenophobia against Muslims, spurring the woman's violent reaction against the alleged thief.

Yet some voices here say that it is, ironically, the famous Dutch tolerance -- euthanasia, gay marriage and soft-drug use are allowed here -- that may have laid the foundation for current ethnic tensions.

"The problem is we have been tolerant of the intolerant, and now we are paying the bill," says Bart Jan Spruyt, director of the conservative Edmund Burke Foundation in The Hague.

In a nation of 16 million, 1 million residents are Muslim. But according to Spruyt, cultural relativism has reigned so long that there has been little, if any, push to integrate immigrants from Morocco and Turkey into Dutch society.

Woof!

2005-03-28T07:23:00.000-08:00

No, this is not serious news, nor anthropological, in any normal sense of the term. But it is very, very funny on a Monday morning.

HOBART, Ind. (AP) -- While there's nothing special about U.S. Postal Service workers being terrorized by dogs, the size of one here is raising eyebrows.

Mail carriers said they were recently unable to deliver mail to homes along a section of Guyer Street in this northwestern Indiana city because of a 4.5-pound Chihuahua named Bobo.

"The little Chihuahua was 10-foot tall when he was on the street," said Florence Page of the Hobart Humane Society, which picked up the dog twice for running loose. "It's kind of comical, you know, but after a while it's not any more."

Hobart police officer Ron Schalk said he had no option but to cite Seber for allowing the dog to run loose.

"The biggest thing I was concerned with is there were a lot of residents that week who couldn't get their mail," he said. "The little Chihuahua was running around being aggressive and trying to bite people's ankles."

POTUS Reading Lists

2005-03-21T08:51:00.000-08:00

Richard Norton Smith, conservative biographer and historian, writes about the reading interests of presidents past and present in the upcoming Weekly Standard. Now his spin is that what presidents read before occupying the White House doesn't translate into a "better" chief executive, his example being James Madison's mismanaged war record. But, when placed against the old portraits on the walls, GBII seems woefully sophomoric:

Like John Quincy Adams, Bush reads the Bible every morning on rising (alternating scripture with the inspirational writings of Oswald Chambers, the Scottish-born chaplain who died in 1917 at the age of 42). Bush, like Adams, emulates his mother more than his presidential father. There the similarities end. The second Adams wrote English with one hand while translating Greek with the other, and complained that his official duties deprived him of the companionship of old friends Cicero and Tacitus. As a former professor of oratory at Harvard, Adams was openly contemptuous of the unlettered Andrew Jackson. He was appalled to learn in 1833 that his beloved alma mater intended to bestow an honorary degree on the Tennessee frontiersman who personified the triumph of western democracy, "a barbarian who could not write a sentence of grammar and could hardly spell his own name."

The Woes of a Best-Selling Author

2005-03-21T08:30:00.000-08:00

The NYT reports that Dan Brown, author of best-selling phenomenon, "The Da Vinci Code," has gone into post-celebrity hiding, shocked at the fame - and money - his book has garnered. I can't say I have much sympathy with Mr. Brown, most authors struggle to make a living at the profession, often relegated to the midlist if they pass the rejection pile (for a noteworthy comparison, read this first-person account). So you write a book, go on the PR circus, and get beter than excellent results: Why are you fighting against the results of your efforts? (Or, in a more colloquial vein, "what where you thinking?")

He has given almost no interviews over the last year, immersing himself instead in researching and writing the follow-up to "The Da Vinci Code," which will again feature Robert Langdon, the familiar Harvard religious scholar, and will be set in Washington and focus on the secretive world of the Freemasons.

"I have no idea how real celebrities handle their fame," Mr. Brown, 40, said last week in a rare written response to questions submitted to him by e-mail message. "I'm just a guy who wrote a book, and it still can turn into a circus at times when I go out in public."

His retreat from the public eye comes as expectations for his next novel grow bigger every day, as do sales of "The Da Vinci Code," a thriller that long ago morphed from a best seller into a cultural phenomenon.

Since its release on March 18, 2003, "The Da Vinci Code," Mr. Brown's fourth novel, has sold roughly 25 million copies in 44 languages around the world, including nearly 10 million hardcover copies in the North America. That is 10 times the average sales of industry titans like John Grisham and Nora Roberts, making the book one of the fastest-selling adult novels of all time. While most books move into paperback within a year of their original publication in hardcover, Mr. Brown's publisher, Doubleday, still has not scheduled a paperback release of "The Da Vinci Code."

The Fancy Loos of LA

2005-03-16T14:23:00.000-08:00

(For our British readers, who appreciate this sort of thing.) More weird news from LA today that seems germane to our fair region. A gas station owner in West Covina has found fame beyond affordable gas and packaged convenience foods. For the past 13 years his station has become reknown for its opulent lavatory, which is unheard of in the states (or elsewhere, for that matter).

Moghadan, 55, of San Dimas, decided to go beyond the basics. He asked his brother, architectural designer Nassar Moghadan of Hemet, to concoct something that motorists wouldn't forget.

Their creation is definitely a step above your average gas station restroom — some might say a little over the top. The walls are drenched in rich earth tones and blue stone tiles, giving the room a vaguely Tuscan — or maybe Vegas — feel. Although a few other gas stations have tried to class up their lavatories, Harryman and others said such creations were still highly unusual.

Over the last dozen years, Moghadan said, he has averaged 20 compliments a day about his facilities. "I have customers from Palm Springs and Las Vegas who make a point of stopping here. Some even bring in relatives to show them the bathroom," he said.

More Microsoft Gimmicks

2005-03-16T14:12:00.000-08:00

Privacy? Microsoft? These two terms mix like water and oil. From MarketingVox.com:

After having introduced a series of also-ran technologies in the search engine market, Microsoft this morning said it planned to release a technology that neither Google nor Yahoo can yet offer: the ability for advertisers to filter the people exposed to their search ads by demographic information. Marketers will be able to target one ad to men, another to women, and use additional information such as age and location. Microsoft has been tracking this information for years through its various sites, including MSN, Hotmail and others, keeping a vast database on tens of millions of individuals, each assigned a user ID Microsofties refer to as a GUID, or global user ID. Past internal Microsoft plans to use the GUID have been shelved due to fears privacy advocates would set about characterizing the technology as a dangerous and invasive use of personal information.

Microsoft said it plans to offer advertisers break-outs of which types of audience members clicked on ads, versus merely saw them, allowing marketers to further refine creative and media choices. In the future, the company may be able to offer media on its non-search sites linked through the GUID to past search behavior, providing a form of simplistic behavioral targeting.
The initial demographic selection technology will roll out with Microsoft's much-heralded adCenter paid search advertising auction system to be initially tested in the next six months in just the tiny markets of France and Singapore. Microsoft's deal with Yahoo for its general search site is set to end a year after that time.

Rats!

2005-03-16T13:52:00.000-08:00

The latest London Review of Books is now online, and contains a review of Robert Sullivan's Rats: A Year with New York’s Most Unwanted Inhabitants. The good news is that the LRB elected to review a book about an important public health problem in any large, urban city - and vermin can make even the most resolute readers slightly queasy. The bad news is that it was reviewed by Sean Wilsey, an editor at McSweeney's, so that the Anglophile readership of the LRB is subjected to the auto-confessional literary machination of the New American Baroque, like this:

Most of the live rats I’ve seen have been in the subway. Train workers call them ‘track rabbits’. Sullivan describes a subway station near Madison Square Garden:

People come down from the streets and throw the food that they have not eaten onto the tracks, along with newspapers and soda bottles . . . The rats eat freely from the waste and sit at the side of the little streams of creamy brown sewery water that flows between the rails. They sip the water the way rats do, either with their front paws or by scooping it up with their incisors.

Recently, a track worker called Manuel, who moonlights as a handyman, helped Daphne and me paint what would soon become our child’s room. Manuel painted in silence, until I asked if he ever encountered rats in the tunnels. ‘I see them all the time! They’re big, and they’re brave. They scare me. The other night I was spreading concrete when I looked up and there was one about a foot long, staring at me. When I waved my shovel at him he stood up on his hind legs and snarled.’

‘What did you do?’

‘I decided to go on a break.’